Representatives from Virgin Money have been discussing the potential purchase of troubled Northern Rock, they being part of a larger consortium.
The plan, if accepted, will be to make an initial GBP 11 billion payment, via commercial debt providers, and then put in a further GBP 1.3 billion for fresh capital investment. At the moment Northern Rock appear to accept the proposal put before them although there are questions over the longer term risk that taxpayers would face on the outstanding debt position.
The government will no doubt acknowledge this risk but it will be mitigated in some way by the interest rate they will earn on it, bringing extra revenue in to cover the risk, to a certain extent anyway. Right now Virgin Money look like firm favourites to take the Northern rock situation on, though only time will tell if that is the case.
The head economist from Lloyds TSB has commented on the unchanged base rate announced today, explaining that it was the need to keep a lid on inflation that led to the decision.
Although there is still a real threat of further economic slowdown the Bank of England could not afford to cut the base rate again since the underlying rate of inflation is higher than it should be. As the Lloyds TSB pointed out, a further base rate cut could fuel more rises in inflation, completely the opposite of what is needed.
He went on to say that, as far as Lloyds TSB can see there will need to be more indications that the economy really is in a slowdown mode before base rates can be considered for reduction again.
82 percent of households in Britain are changing their behaviour in response to rising costs and future economic concerns say Legal and General.
With Summer holidays topical right now it is revealing to see that over a quarter of households have changed their holiday plans because of their uncertainty about the future. Lots of people have also cut down on how often they go out, with nearly 40 percent of people saying they now spend more time at home.
One of the biggest concerns from the Legal and General survey was the fact that about half the households spoken to are cutting back on food in order to manage their finances, with over a quarter of them also looking at selling possessions in order to manage. Lets hope the government sees the survey and does something about it, starting with fuel taxation, something that affects the cost of everything in the UK.
