Last year the taxpayer owned British Business Bank lost us £147 million. Its auditors said it can carry on trading because taxpayers will send it enough money to pay the bills.
609 staff were paid £60 million between them. Senior staff accrued more long term incentive bonus. Nice job if you can get one.
The taxpayer did get a long report on how they comply with a wide range of requirements. It revealed their investments in a bookshop, a beauty business, an electric forklift business and various other fashionable areas.
The taxpayer now has put £3bn at risk in this outfit.If we had used that money this year to cut the state borrowing we could have saved £120 m of interest instead of losing £147 m.
There is no evidence the state sector is any good at this type of investment banking. There should be no wish to saddle taxpayers with more losses. Sell the whole thing off as soon as possible.
March 3, 2024
Clearly ripe for closure
March 3, 2024
JR, I suppose the real question is why is your party and govt so stupid to invent this after the banking crash where the taxpayer bailed out greedy private individuals and the taxpayer still owns shares in banks? Fred Goodwin was paid a fortune, receives a huge pensions and the taxpayer picked the bill for his stupidity, he was even an advisor to To dopey Gordon Brown!
The UK need to revert where directors of banks have personal responsibility so they pay the price of their own stupidity. Sink or swim time. Glass and Steagle was introduced about 100 years ago to separate merchant banking from personal banking. U fortunately Clinton changed it to get the black vote and did a deal with bankers, Blaire and Brown followed. Is this correct?
Despite billions of losses in private banks where bankers got/get millions the taxpayer picked up the tab and not one banker, no one, got punished? It also shows a the FCA a total waste of space. You pointed out several times BOE makes multiple billion losses on bonds yet useless Bailey picks up a salary over £600,000! BOE staff also get bonuses!!
So, again, what has your party and govt done over 14 years? All your party had to do was look at what Blaire did and reverse it. From education, foreign wars, constitution changes, EU, taxation, Equality legislation to silence public against mass immigration, embed socialism in public services, judiciary, etc etc. No, instead your party gold plated and furthered his socialism to embed into our society.
Why are you never accepting the blame for your party/govt. decisions? Sunak’s speech the same. He imports alien cultures by the million each year, including not knowing who they are or where they are, knowing a large proportion hate our way of life, has no control over who can be deported because of ECHR, then wonders what the public should do to solve the problem he created and throws in veiled racism for good measure!
March 3, 2024
Spot On HOPE
March 3, 2024
Err…wasn’t it Big Bang which allowed UK banks to mix being high street and investment banks, and abolished the separation between jobbers and brokers?
London was then getting more business than New York, so Glass Steagall was abolished.
Possibly our host can comment on this.
March 3, 2024
@Hope – your conclusion is to rational and beyond the comprehension of those we empower and pay to ensure sanity persists Sunak/Hunt
March 3, 2024
+1
March 3, 2024
Hope
Indeed, and now we are led to believe Sunak and Hunt are having deep last minute discussions about 2 pence off of income tax, when millions of people are now paying tax on their State pension for the first time.
The stupidity of their thoughts knows no bounds now.
Millions of people are now paying income tax because Hunt froze the personal allowance.
Thus millions more people will now need to file a tax return, when the existing system is already overloaded and cannot cope with the number of help enquires already being made, let alone more !
I guess we will hear their solution is to employ even more people at more expense, to collect a few pounds from the masses, making it income neutral for the Government, (so absolutely pointless) but leaving everyone out here with less to spend.
If people have less to spend, then less VAT is collected !!!!!
Deluded thoughts from people who should know better, but do not really have a clue.
March 3, 2024
The ONS and OBR have relatives from the opposition bench working there as well left wing activists. Is there any doubt why they would advocate socialism to gutless useless socialists who followed Blaire?
Cameron and Plebgate spent £7 billion on Ukraine, gave them two minesweepers ships and £3 billion to Africa not knowing how the money will be spent!! Sunak gives EU £2.4 billion each for EU Horizon to promote EU interests and the EU might, just might, award some of our money back for projects!! Sunak the one who made school boy errors to the tune of £12 billion to fraud and did not want it investigated to cause him further humiliation! Hunt who allows BOE to sell bonds at multiple billion losses. Yet these four wasters cannot afford tax cuts! I wonder why? Answers on a post card for a Blue Peter badge, I think most school children can see their stupidity.
Labour wants to give free breakfasts (as well free lunches) to every school child!! I despair. How about not having children if you cannot afford them? It might also help housing. The U I party wants to feed the world no wonder they come by the millions each year!
March 3, 2024
Hope – Beware the Trojan Horse. All planned by the Globalist UK Establishment NWO government.
March 3, 2024
DP,
One state run enterprise at a time. Even if few people have heard of this one.
March 3, 2024
Fair enough when a billionaire puts his money into a vanity project and loses. It’s his money, his decision.
It’s grossly unfair when our elected representatives choose to throw our money at a vanity project, or to save their faces, or to please their friends, to look good in polite society etc, in the knowledge that they are untouchable between election cycles (and mostly they can arrange their affairs so they do very well for themselves if thrown out of office).
March 3, 2024
@Wanderer +1 – hit the nail on the head this Conservative Government will spend yours, ours and my money to keep their friends employed, but the will not release UK industry to survive and prosper
March 3, 2024
It appears the public sector isn’t good at anything. When an ex PM can pick up a PM’s £146000 pension for a few weeks in the job. When the first speaker of the commons to be sacked in 300 years can pick up a peerage. £330 a day, nice work if you can get it. When the worst PM this country has had is rewarded with the highest knighthood, the Order of the Garter. There are so many examples of failure public sector failure rewarded with bonuses, pensions, peerages, knighthoods and more. The only questions are, why should anyone who can get their noses in the ever deepening trough not do so. And who made the trough.
March 3, 2024
Most hereditary peerages stopped in the previous millennium. Lifelong entitlements and payments should be similarly removed by emptying slime from the trough regularly. Achievers should be rewarded according to what good, if any, they continue doing for the country. At the moment too many receive titles and lifelong payments solely based on what they did once, enabling them to gain from continued uselessness.
March 3, 2024
MPs get a disproportionate amount of titles for an overpaid part time job. There are far more serving people who never get mentioned. It is corruption to buy silence or votes. Knighthoods and peerages have been diminished and in some cases a badge of shame.
March 3, 2024
Yet right to recall not delivered as promised after the institutional corruption in 2008/09 and all the promises to clear up Westminster. We got were a tightening of the rules to hide from public eyes, despite the Tory PM stating transparency the best disinfectant. Little did we know he was acting in stark contrast to his further claim lobbying being the next scandal which he was already involved in! Same for tax avoidance measures he slammed others for!
March 3, 2024
@BW – it has always been know as a proven fact the public sector as it does not face competition will always fail, they have a Conservative Government that will steal from everyone’s wallets to keep them afloat regardless. It is where failed politicos that don’t escape the Country go to feather their nests.
As Sir John, often intimates if something can be done by the private sector it should always be the first option
March 3, 2024
BW – BLAIR was the start
March 3, 2024
Am I correct in assuming that they also subsidise many industries and give healthy start up loans to small business,thereby enabling a greater number of people to pay tax?
March 3, 2024
@Margaret
I’m not sure this Bank should be “subsidising” anything although it may have helped generate some economic activity from both good and bad investments.
March 3, 2024
@Margaret
My thoughts are .. if a private sector bank or other investor is prepared to make an investment then why does a public sector bank need to get involved ?
If a private sector bank or other investor is not prepared to make an investment then a public sector bank should not be getting involved.
If the Government chooses to subsidise, then that is a separate matter.
March 3, 2024
@oldwulf – its called having a Competitive market place, it causes costs to be controlled. That something the State/Public center doesn’t have to worry about, they ask for more this Conservative Government gives them more by stealing from the taxpayer. They are destroying society not helping it
March 3, 2024
‘giving’ do they want paying back?
March 3, 2024
If this Bank has lost us all this money, there is one place to put the blame and one place only – the Conservative party which has been running the country these last 14 years. Vote Reform, vote Green, vote Labour, vote Libdem – vote for whoever is most likely to beat the Conservative in your constituency
March 3, 2024
The Conservative Party have passed their use by date.
March 3, 2024
…or give it away!
March 3, 2024
What on earth is the government doing wasting taxes on investing in such nonesense.
We saw the same outcome when Nottingham Council ran Robin Hood energy, that went bankrupt and £30 million wa needed to bale them out.
Is it all overseen by the Ministry of Waste.
I see that Hunt has had his budget trashed by the paragon of nonesense the OBR. Who indeed runs the country.
March 3, 2024
So today when 35gw of wind is only supplying 3gw, we are Importing 24.2% of our electricity. Not what you’d call energy security
I see the government has rowed back on the boiler tax after they’d managed to screw the pricing up £120 per u it. Did the government actually believe the manufacturers would pay this tax.
March 3, 2024
Ian
“Boiler tax”
As I have said many times on here, many politicians and certainly Governments do not understand Human Nature, which is why so many of their policies fail at the first hurdle, which is compliance.
People/companies find ways around obstacles by various means if they cannot afford, or do not wish to comply.
Thus you end up with the law of unintended consequences growing ever greater and faster, the more stupid the proposed legislation.
With fewer politicians getting extensive experience in the real World of work, and the management of money, budgets and people before becoming politicians, it will only get worse, as more and more stupid ideas of control are proposed.
March 3, 2024
IW : “So today when 35gw of wind is only supplying 3gw, we are Importing 24.2% of our electricity. Not what you’d call energy security.”
Correct.
The purpose of Net Zero, that is replacing our access to cheap, abundant and reliable hydrocarbon and nuclear energy, with expensive, chaotically intermittent renewables with no storage plan is to deliberately cause energy insecurity and thus impoverishment.
Not that there is any energy security when the major renewables infrastructure, windmills and solar panels, are supplied by a state dscribed by our security services as “hostile”. I would also like to know from the MOD how they intend to protect offshore wind farms spread out over hundreds of square kilometres of the North Sea and all the undersea cabling required. All of which can be easily attacked by cheap drones.
March 3, 2024
Or by robot or manned submarines or tidal wave bombs. The whole net zero CO2 and UK agenda is total and utter insanity.
March 3, 2024
No-one runs the country. It was abandoned long ago by the Tory ‘government’ and yet it has loyal supporters who claim to influence it for the better.
It is occupied by people who live in world which deliberately has no contact with us and has no ability to understand how we think.
They play act and of course ensure they themselves and their friends are safe and wealthy.
March 3, 2024
Thats about right. There has been no intention to hold a finger on the pulse or mood of the country and its electorate. There has been no concern while ensuring the friends and those of influence have lined their pockets, granted dividends, generous pay-offs and gold-plated pensions.
The only chance of holding a bloodless revolution is a serious meltdown of society and economy. A rise from the ashes is long overdue, what WEF and similar are doing in terms of balancing is a mere wave of the arm compared to the clenched fist of frustration brewing and direct action.
March 3, 2024
IW : “ I see that Hunt has had his budget trashed by the paragon of nonesense the OBR. Who indeed runs the country.”
Our elected representatives could if they wanted remove the OBR.
But Hunt is wanting to signal to the electorate that he wants to cut taxes when he really doesn’t. So he uses the OBR to trash his tax-cutting policies.
March 3, 2024
Well having just read one of their advertised job descriptions I doubt if any of them have ever run a successful business in their lives. What in gods name is hybrid working for 37 hours a week. Reality in starting and running a SME is 18 hours a day. Holidays only when success allows you to afford them and child care is down to your wife when you can afford to have and to educate them. More than likely she will be helping you get the business going from its outset. You will be forfunate if the marriage withstands the process.
That is the real world, not the gobbledegook I read in their job description.
Years ago, the wife of one of my dear friends, ran and then owned via inheritance a string of betting shops. She had a few million in cash at the bank. They, seeing a predatory opportunity, invited her to meet their invsstment manager for advice. She asked him a simple question, if you are advising on investing my millions, where is your Rolls Royce. He probably had a company Ford Zephyr at the time so end of conversation. She ended up owning half of her towns High Street. Her husband was equally canny.
Conclusion, banking investment advice from anyone who has not made it themselves is worthless, as is the bank they run so get it off the government balance sheet.
March 3, 2024
Nice one, Agricola.
March 3, 2024
Agricola
Indeed, what you describe is the reality that many thousands have experienced when trying to make it themselves.
The usual Moto is pay everyone else first, yourself last.
Those who fail quickest are those who first borrow to invest in themselves, with a flash and expensive car and premise, before their business is established..
March 3, 2024
Reminds me of the book about a visitor to New York who admired the yachts of the bankers and brokers. Naively he asked “Where are the customers’ yachts?” It was written in 1955!
March 3, 2024
Yes, there is an old New York saying ‘ Where are the customers yachts?’ This relates to the deluded investment advisors of the city bragging that they have made so much money that they can have yachts, whereas the customer usually pays and cannot of course afford them. Nothing changes, except it now seems to be the politicians ending up with the big money whilst the public struggle to eat or heat.
Reply that is the reverse point to saying the investment advisers are no good because they do not have yatchs
March 4, 2024
No, it is an allegory. The big advisors and handlers of new issues get paid mega bucks regardless. They get paid not on delivery but on advice. The customers pay the price. In recent years one big advisor was hailed as a God, went out on his own and busted loads of people.
March 3, 2024
@agricola +1 so true
Competition is King. Subsidies are just stealing from those that don’t have money to give it to those that do.
I remember a few years back there was a political ho-ha with regards to commissions charge by those giving investment advice – what was missed, not asked was are those charging the highest fees producing the best results?
The Conservative Government Quango for energy suggest the maximum charge that can be made on energy so the company’s all charge the maximum. Universities are told what is the maximum the can charge in fees – so they all charge the maximum. As it is with this Conservative Government in it never about outcomes/delivery/results it is signaling that all important virtue
March 3, 2024
Ian B
“…those charging the highest rates…….”
Not really true, as none of them suffered any penalty for failure.
Now if they were paid on the basis of:
If I fail to make YOU a decent (pre agreed) return on your money, then I will not charge you anything at all, that would be different.
Perhaps the best solution would be, I will charge you percentage on the return you get only, not on the original sum invested.
NO they all prefer, win, lose, or draw, I will still get paid, whilst you take all the risks.
March 3, 2024
@Berkshire Alan -“I will charge you percentage on the return” true and better. i was making the point poorly that Government interference generally turns out worse
March 3, 2024
@Agricola, interesting comment to an interesting post if I may say.
Surely the starting of an SME is only one corner of ‘reality’. Another corner of reality is the investment of vast quantities of capital in the expectation of security and adequate return without personal involvement, and the acceptance of a level of risk. The Norwegian sovereign wealth fund is a good example of this happening at a national level. Equity fund managers may not have the Rolls Royce but they seem to be doing alright as far as I can see…
Another corner of reality is that any truly interesting and promising nationally produced technological innovations can be commandeered by the military, and rightly so.
March 3, 2024
More parasitism at the heart of the barely concealed Socialist state masquerading as capital investment. No risk of equity loss for those making such ‘investments’ so no true and accurate analysis of the grade and quality of such investments. A pointless, virtue signalling exercise that conceals a network of well connected individuals who seek a lifestyle of taxpayer funded luxury
To see some Tory party MPs and their lackeys feeding from the trough of Labour’s client state should no longer surprise anyone and complaining about it becomes worthless and pointless.
March 3, 2024
+1
March 3, 2024
I think its all fraudulent, an indirect way of giving our money to their mates in such things as WEF!
I therefore work to make sure they get as little of my money as possible!
March 3, 2024
@DOM +1
That’s exactly the problem – bottom feeding freeloaders have infested the politicos, the ‘Blob’, the HoC and this Conservative Government. They are denigrating those great and good people that are there to serve and move us forward. The infestation now seems that great we need to remove them all and start over. Or as Rishi has promised if we don’t vote for him ‘the Country will go back to square one’
March 3, 2024
This is not a subject I know much about, so I’ll just ask a question. Apparently the BBB was created by the Tory-LibDem Coalition “to bring a number of government financial schemes, advice services and expertise together, creating a one stop shop for small and medium enterprises (SMEs) to go to”, according to Wikipedia. Would there have been a need to set it up if the banks had been doing their traditional job, of lending to SMEs with a viable business plan?
March 3, 2024
Well not their money and so likely not even trying to make any money. Plus over that last year in banking most have made a fortune – rather hard for anyone with money to lend to lose it if they are remotely competent in the last few years.
March 3, 2024
Lifelogic,
Meanwhile, Andrew Bridgen’s wife is surely correct in today’s ‘Times’ that he ‘was captured by an anti vax cult’.
That should give you something to write about.
Not that you particularly need encouragement.
March 3, 2024
I have worked in investment banks for 30+ years. The British Business Bank was a way to get around EU subsidy laws. Once we left the EU it became legally redundant.
Over night it’s function changed from legal sleight of hand to political sleight of hand.
March 3, 2024
+1
Just heard a government add claiming heat pumps are three times more efficient than gas boilers. Not true in a typical UK installation and electricity cost three times more than gas per KWH anyway. Plus far more to fit, noisy and less practical. They an add for Mayor Khan thinly disguised as an add for the idiotic and pointless new woke train line names. Again this has highly dubious claims for train efficiency when you consider the staff, end journeys, ticketing, indirect routes, train low occupancy. Try Gatwick to Tunbridge Wells by car it is far quicker, half the distance and far cheaper too. Plus you can carry 5 or even 7 people.
March 3, 2024
@Javelin – and employment for those that wouldn’t get employed in the real world, jobs-for-the-boys. Its just deceit
March 3, 2024
Hunt is on the right track if, as is reported today, he is planning to reduce the size of the Civil Service to give scope for the tax cuts demanded by Sunak for his pre-election bribe to Middle England
As usual, government statistics are enlightening – taken from:-
https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/civil-service-statistics-2023/statistical-bulletin-civil-service-statistics-2023
Headcount has increased across all regions except for London, East of England and Overseas, with the largest increase in North West England (67,110, up from 64,305 in 2022).
The median salary is £31,920, up £1,810 (6.0%) from £30,110 in 2022 and the median age of civil servants is 44 years, unchanged from 2022.
There were 56,760 entrants to the Civil Service in 2022/23, down from 69,400 in 2021/22.
In 2022/23, 46,080 people left the Civil Service, up from 44,215 in 2021/22
72.4% are working at Executive Officer (EO) grade and above, up from 71.8% in 2022 and 55.8% in 2013.
In total, government employs ~23% of the working age population in QUANGOs & the Civil Service. These people, who can mostly speak the dead language Latin, produce no exportable output, qualify for non-contributory, index-linked final salary pensions (though the more recent entrants are on a different scheme and have to make contributions from their salary) and are famous for their recent delays in issuing passports, DVLA issues, HMRC customer service problems etc.
The sooner the Civil Service introduces AI and reduces headcount by 75% (saving the taxpayer £bns) the better.
March 3, 2024
Hunt today:- “And so I do think in the long run, we need to move back to being a lower taxed, more lightly regulated economy. “But it would be deeply unconservative to cut taxes in a way that increased borrowing, wasn’t fully funded.”
Well in the long term we are all dead Jeremy Hunt your policies are all hugely anti-growth and growth is the only way out. The Tories have had nearly 14 years and have delivered the highest taxes for 70+ years. Vast government waste is never “fully funded” so why do this? Just cut out the vast waste:- Net zero, renewable subsidies, the soft loans for worthless degrees, the appallingly run NHS sick joke, the PPE/ Baroness Mone/pub landlord types of events, the vast net harm Covid Vaccines, the net harm lockdowns, appalling defence procurement, sick joke policing, the expensive, slow, misdirected and inefficient justice system (witness the post office judgements), failure to take advantage of Brexit deregulation, the open door expensive low skilled immigration…
March 3, 2024
Hunt “the economies growing fastest North America, Asia tend to be the ones with lower taxes”
What a huge surprise Jeremy! Also they are the regions with cheap, on demand energy and less regulation. It is 1/3 of the cost very often in the USA. China building new coal fired power stations every few weeks.
So why Mr Hunt have given us the net zero rip off energy agenda, the highest taxes 70 years and over regulation of almost everything this combined with vast government waste while delivering dire and still declining public services and open door immigration.
March 3, 2024
He blames the pandemic for all the problems. Not at all Jeremy it was the moronic way your government dealt with the pandemic. Net harm vaccines, pointless net harm lockdowns, furlough, state sector working from home, failure to use treatments like Vitamin D and other that we knew were safe and worked. No discussion about net zero rip off energy agenda – well it was the BBC.
March 3, 2024
I enjoyed Hunt’s throwaway that whilst the OBR’s forecasts were bad the Treasury’s were worse.
March 3, 2024
erm …reduce tax to get re-elected or to induce growth ….Hunt ‘to get re-elected’
March 3, 2024
@Lifelogic – it would be good if those we pay to control spending, ensure the state and the country lived within it means actually got on a did that. 14 years of failure coming up to 4 years with Sunak at the helm of what gets spent and what happens? He grows the Public/State sector exponentially then the services and delivery decline – its just talk. No the talk is ramped up because its election year. Still nothing is delivered other than more promisses to renege on.
March 3, 2024
‘On the right track’ – funny how such insights occur to a Chancellor only when an election is just months away. I’d say he is away with the fairies – the Civil Service is a hydra – swamp dwelling and forever growing new heads and will never be permitted to be run down to what is needed only for good governance. Too many influential fingers in too many pies.
March 3, 2024
@Sakara Gold – I don’t usually agree with your analysis, but today I do. Our tax and borrowing bill appears to have grown state/public empires and not had the Conservative Government managing the outcomes of delivery of services – the job they(the Conservative Government) have been employed to do. As Sir John often implies, if the private sector can be contracted to do the job by competitive tender that should always be the choice. But most of us don’t mean the contracts as awarded to HS2(£37.5bn now £78.4bn) or EDF(£16bn now £46bn) those contracts are either fraudulent or sloppily managed – everyone one had the opportunity to do due-diligence before engaging.
This Conservative Government refuses to manage expenditure, but now once again with a pending an election will promise they will if the get voted in once more – 14 years of similar promises and the opposite always the outcome
March 3, 2024
SG,
‘ These people, who can mostly speak the dead language Latin, …’
23% of the working population cannot ‘speak the dead language Latin’ !
Tua Culpa
March 3, 2024
Surely it is more than 23% cannot speak Latin I would have though about 5% can speak it.
Not that high a % even speak coherent English!
March 3, 2024
LL,
Agreed. I was just referring to the 23% Sakara claims mostly speak it.
I doubt even a fraction of a per cent speak it. It’s not The Vatican in the 1950s.
March 3, 2024
Not even 5% – and then you need to differentiate between reasonable understanding of the written words and being able to actually converse.
March 4, 2024
I’m impressed if it’s true that civil service administrators can mostly “speak Latin”, SG. I had no idea they were so intelligent. I thought they just had to be fluent in woke Newspeak.
March 3, 2024
What a truly depressing piece Sir John. It strikes me the state has an anti midas touch which turns gold into soft brown stuff.
According to your figures quoted Sir John… The average salary works out to be about £98500 pa. That seems to be rather high if it includes all staff. I would expect junior grades and unskilled labour to be on much less which means some grades are on considerably more than that average. They clearly aren’t rewarded on results!
Personally, I think the state should not set up businesses owned by and run by the state. We see it at a local level too but one wonders if that is to get around freedom of information requests, or am I just being cynical?
March 3, 2024
“The state has an anti midas touch which turns gold into soft brown stuff.”
Well they are diverting tax payers money (taken off loads of individuals) into large profits for a few other well connected individuals very often. Incompetence, crony capitalism or pure corruption must be the main drivers of this.
March 3, 2024
Cliff
You are Guilty of using simple mathematics again to highlight a problem !
I wonder why those in charge have not completed the same exercise.
Just what are these people doing for such a high average salary.
Simple maths again suggests they lost on average £241,379 for each employee, which is nearly 3 times their own average salary !
March 3, 2024
This government is full of wasters. Parasitic traders losing money stay in businesses only while reckless government hosts their existence on taxpayers’ money.
March 3, 2024
@Bloke +1
All promises made on the run up to an election all broken and the opposite implemented – how many lies should we endure?
March 3, 2024
We read of the utterly naive and ill informed proposal to offer 99% mortgages to first time buyers, pure political virtue signalling to try and cover up a wider policy failure. Rightly the lenders who would provide the scheme, backed I guess by a government guarantee, pushed back.
One aspect not widely known is that with little/no stake borrowers just walk away when the going gets tough, mainly financial but also domestic. They just hand back the keys and, as a lender, expecting there to be equity every time to cover costs/drop in price is nonsense.
Equally in business. As we see with the British Bank. Politicians dazzled by the thought of a start up turning into a unicorn. Again total naïveté. High risk start up lending is a maths exercise. Business Angels, in general, take on 10 deals to find say 2 when exited, cover the loss of 4/5 failures, the rest limping along plus a profit.
To be truly successful businesses need IP, capable of being scaled, good management who have put in (boot necked) all they can and a clear exit for the investor.
Investing is just maths, interest rate etc covers cost of capital that includes admin and losses on other loans.
British Business organisations have whinged for decades that there is a gap in finance provision. No there isn’t. There is a gap in investment ready businesses and understanding difference between equity investment and finance.
That the British Bank is posting losses is no surprise to finance professionals when they look at the portfolio. We are suffering once again from ‘stupid’ politicians and civil servants crumbling to vested interest and putting politics before market reality.
Guess who suffers yet again..
March 3, 2024
BBB – They include its dealings with scandal-hit lender Greensill, which was originally accredited to hand out government-backed loans to struggling businesses during the Covid-19 crisis, but was later found to have breached the £50m-per-company cap by lending £400m to a string of businesses linked to embattled metals tycoon Sanjeev Gupta. The BBB eventually stripped Greensill, which has since collapsed, of those guarantees last year.
March 3, 2024
taken from BBB website.
March 3, 2024
Awful to listen to the Chancellor this morning again spreading misinformation/ disinformation about the threat of mob rule – there’s no end to it it seems – the lobby has them by the throat
March 3, 2024
groundsman
“Mob rule..”
Especially when it has happened when they were in charge, the signs of it growing have been obvious for decades
March 3, 2024
@groundsman +1 the Nation reflects the reckless behavior of its leadership. If the leadership trashes the Country why shouldn’t everyone else?
March 3, 2024
The Chancellor the man along with the PM are the ones that take your money then manage it’s spend. They are using our money to fund division, create discrimination throughout all entities that they alone award our money too.
They are causing and funding entitlement so is it any surprise others want to join in, he who shout the loudest get the most.
March 3, 2024
Another quango – another way to pay useless quango-hopping exec’s huge salaries for no return.
When are we going to see an end to the creation of institutions that just fleece the taxpayer?
No doubt there will be others – there must be a secret think tank somewhere in Whitehall to find ever new ways to pour our taxes into fancy sounding quango that will never repay the investment.
March 3, 2024
Sell off channel 4 also. The state should not own any businesses which operate in competitive markets, including media assets (neither the U.K. nor any other govt, eg Abu Dhabi).
On another topic we read that there can’t be tax cuts as the OBR has changed the assumptions which would otherwise have ‘permitted’ them. If the OBR’s choices are to determine tax policy then of course we must elect the OBR, and be able to remove its officials in elections if we don’t like their policies, or it turns out they are wrong.
March 3, 2024
Equity financing is difficult enough even when you have some idea of what you are doing. To allow the Government to indulge itself in this type of banking suggest its just job for the boys – where on earth is the accountability
March 3, 2024
“taxpayers will send it enough money to pay the bills.” Sloppy management, sloppy government control. Every one goes on about reducing tax when all the while the only problem, a massive problem we have is a couple of guys calling themselves a Conservative Government that just flatly refuse to control expenditure to manage the economy – they are acting like an extreme left wing Socialist/Labour Government.
The electorate was duped into supporting them because they had Conservative in their name – it was all lies.
This week will see the Budget from our Socialist Chancellor Jeremy Hunt who will shuffle the ‘deck chairs’ tell you you are to be rewarded if you vote for him and Rishi Sunak, while all the time they still refuse to manage, still refuse to control expenditure, refuse to be Conservative.
March 3, 2024
Absolutely right; sell it off.
March 3, 2024
Why are you so opposed to anything run as a public enterprise? Why would a commercial company want to take over the functions of this bank other than to charge more to its customers and line the pockets of shareholders and executives?
Reply I am not against public services run by the public sector. I am against gambling with taxpayers money in the commercial sector as this Bank tries to do. History tells us they usually lose taxpayers a packet.
March 3, 2024
Reply to reply : I wouldn’t mind if BBB invested in an upgrade to steel blast furnaces rather than electric arc ones, and the infrastructure lost 30 years ago, That would be a “loss” worth having and could be ‘managed’ by the Energy Minister.
March 3, 2024
More incompetence, more expense, more overpayment, more failure, more taxpayer funded losses.
When will it ever end ?
March 3, 2024
Same problem with our Wales Development Bank, Companies House no. 4055414, last page shows 2023 deficit £27.6m and 2022 £22.6m, presumably covered by taxes, paid for by taxpayers… they claim in their latest report to offer loans on a commercial basis, so as not to displace the commercial banks… in conclusion Sir J, it’s another example of government doing the same job BADLY by not balancing their books and indeed needs to be sold off too.
March 3, 2024
I have never heard of this bank. It it some con job? We should not be meddling in finance propositions like this. The bankers are corrupt enough never mind letting politicians in on the game. If this sort of thing is going on no wonder we are up the shoot with trying to balance the books. I wonder what Baroness Thatcher would say about it after her upbringing in the shop. I have been a bank clerk (when banks worked for their customers and not the elite con merchants) and an auditor for the Civil Service before Horizon and such con merchants so know how to balance the books and still do it with my own finances. I have a written statement each month which I tick off my expenditures and incomings by hand. Forget the machine, do it manually. It keeps you from going off and you know where every penny has gone.
March 3, 2024
£147m is but small change compared to the subsidies, losses to British businesses and the country as a result of Parliament following the communist eco-terrorist Net Zero Strategy.
March 3, 2024
PS : When the delusion of CAGW and the fraud that is Net Zero becomes apparent, when the Emperor is found to be wearing no clothes, the collapse will be very sudden because it is widely recognised but hereto not acknowledged for entirely political reasons that it is all compete unscientific nonsense.
March 3, 2024
OR – Nothing can stop what is coming, NOTHING and the ENORMITY
of what is coming will shock the world.
March 3, 2024
making excuses for rubbish investment decisions?
March 3, 2024
“Chancellor aims to axe Civil Service posts and ditch ‘woke’ initiatives to fund tax cuts” In plain English there is an election coming!
This is practically the same promise from 14 years ago, just as with the bonfire of the Quangos, and stopping the illegal invasion of our shore. Its all-proven lies.
Each time these pronouncements appear the opposite happen, the State gets bigger by a massive amount, the jobs-for-the-boys Quangos increase and the deluge of criminal entry into the UK grows.
Rishi Sunak has been in control of the UK’s purse strings and the expenditure of everyone’s hard earned tax money, directly for the last 4 years. In that time, he has grown the State, the money spent on it, he has grown the Quangos and he has encouraged the criminal invasion of the UK. He has given taxpayers money to support foreign enterprise and governments while neglecting and refusing to protect the UKs indigenous industry.
March 3, 2024
Ian B :
Correct.
March 3, 2024
‘aims to ‘ ‘plans to ‘ ‘steps taken’.
All avoid actually doing, but a decent sound bite for the gullible.
March 3, 2024
The truth is investment in UK enterprises have been maligned by Government policies and decisions for many years . ” The fault lies in the stars ” we are the ” underlings “.
March 3, 2024
As usual you are right – losses should be avoided. However, when it comes to selling NatWest shares at a huge loss now that the bank is finally making some money, you are all for it. Just shows that socialising losses and privatising profits at public expense is still a Tory mantra.
Reply Untrue. I speak out against the state making the losses in the first place. Gordon Brown paid too much for RBS. Nothing can be done about that now. I was against the deal at the time.
March 4, 2024
Too late now we are where we are agreed. What’s the point of crystalizing losses when the bank are now in profit and could pay dividends? I notice you don’t reply to the fundamental question of why you support making mega losses on this, gaining nothing but a small amount of money to be spaffed up the wall by the Chancellor so as usual, family silver sold, nothing gained. Can you tell me where all the oil and privatisation money went? Do we have anything that we can point to such as a wealth fund? Norway are one of the richest countries in the world because they husbanded their assets, not let them be stripped out by the privateers at the fastest rate to make the fastest buck possible.
Reply The Bank is losing money. Some of its investment should be able to make money in future. Thus would be reflected in the sale price
March 5, 2024
Sorry, I must be reading the wrong papers. I saw that for the latest profits are 6.3 billion – the biggest since 2007 – a 22 percent increase on the previous year which was 5.2 billion Obviously, time to sell at a loss.
March 3, 2024
Hunt & Sunak are happy with the current situation as they’re both Keynesian’s
March 3, 2024
“There is no evidence the state sector is any good at this type of investment banking”
There is no evidence British VC or Banks are any good, either! They are Very expensive, seek far to much control, and they do not care about the start-up long term future!
The British Business Bank (BBB) came about to get around the EU rules, which the Germans and French had no problems with, they held Golden Shares of most fundamental industry’s! Which, then, have no problems competing with large Overseas company’s!
What has happened to British Manufacturing? No support, no Cheap Energy Strategy, no Investment, no strong regulator!
A Tory’s reaction; Close it down, or sell off these the assets, which are can be stripped, and the Working Poor and Blue Collar Workers are left on Universal Credit. Next you’ll want to cut benefits ?
But, British Private Sector Banks (or VC) are not an alternative, as you know! They will not invest in start ups!
Why have BBB been allowed to employ 600+ staff?
Why did it not hold the equity of a Loan Company, like FinTec, that could then do this type of lending?
Why aren’t they holding British Assets, and leveraging them it to make large Longer Term Investments!
Why aren’t they holding 51% of the Steel Works, and investing in Blast Furnaces at Port Talbot!
Nuclear Power plants! British Plants Owned by the Chinese (?) and French EDF (French Government Owned)!
All assets should be held (by BBB) in the British Interest, not sold off to foreign Investors, or bought by company’s like TataSteel through Dumping (Market Capture) on an open market, like ours!
What is the alternative to British Business Bank?
Not Tory idiots selling off all British Assets, profitable or not!
Given the geopolitical environment we are in, Politicians will need to learn how to act in the British Interest!
Example; Making Primary Steel, with British Employees, with British sourced Cheap Energy, and Exporting to world wide markets to offset the cost! There by generating wealth, and spreading it around Britain and British Industry!
Money well spent!
Even, if you can’t see past cutting benefits to People that should be employed, on high wages, within British Manufacturing!
People are now asking why British Politicians, like yourself, are not making this point, when all our competitors are!
The only place the Rich invest, is within the Financial Markets, in the City of London, Property, or Consumption!
So, Non-Dom status is not that relevant to them, just efficient for Tax!
They’ll do the same in other Financial Centres!
British Interest ?
March 3, 2024
If the UK ends up with a forklift company, beauty company etc that it wouldn’t have otherwise, perhaps the £147m is well spent ?
You’ve got to look at the long term benefits this bank could bring on one side of the equation, and the money the bank loses on the other. You shouldn’t look at the bank profit/loss in isolation ?
March 3, 2024
Banks lend in exchange for collateral… this one didn’t !
March 3, 2024
This is exactly the sort of “business” activity that is un-Conservative. It is of a piece with the follies of Linwood and Ravenscraig. It smacks of the sort of Conservatives who believe that we must have an “industrial strategy”. The State is no good at picking winners. It should just finance seed-corn research and leave the rest to markets.
To give another example, pressure from HM Government is behind the energy companies’ drive to get people to install smart metres. Yet it is known – and has been broadcast by at least two major television networks – that three million of these metres do not work or do not work fully. They cannot be read remotely. I’ve got a message for Governments and their agents. Why don’t you all f-fade away?
March 3, 2024
The British state cannot run anything right now. It is spectacularly useless. Odd that some other countries, like Norway can manage a sovereign wealth fund successfully in its national interest but the British state doesn’t even know what the national interest is.
March 3, 2024
They do know the difference between National Interest and Their Interest however.
March 3, 2024
How is it taxpayers money can be gambled on this way. Without the board & senior management being accountable for any lost funds.
Give anyone access to a sweet shop without having to pay. Will mean the customers become fat but the owner goes bust!!
It’s basically fraud & should be treated as such!
March 3, 2024
And close the OBR. IMMEDIATELY.
March 3, 2024
YES
March 3, 2024
Never heard of this Bank from business support services, government messages, I wonder just who gets the loans and what % of successes do they have on their choices? How do prospective traders/business people get told about it?
https://www.british-business-bank.co.uk/
March 3, 2024
Why is the financial establishment not challenged if this taxpayer funded BBB lost £147m last year, the staff are well rewarded with incentive bonuses and good salaries despite these losses and “there is no evidence the state sector is any good at this type of investment banking”?
March 3, 2024
Another sell of needed – why is the UK Government still holding a major share in the NatWest group. Waiting to sell them at a profit is like Waiting for Godot. Even a nominal profit would mask a substantial loss because of inflation. The plain fact is that Gordon Brown paid too much for the shares. The Government should prepare for a sale by getting all of the woke directors and non-execs and putting an end to debanking.
March 3, 2024
“The coup de grace of Tory government has been doling out 1.4 million visas last year alone and defying every manifesto promise to halt the increase in immigration. The contempt for their voters’ wishes and arrogant obliviousness to the impact on normal families has, quite rightly, sealed the Tories’ death warrant.” says Allison Pearson, and I agree.
March 3, 2024
Sir John is once again right in his neat conclusion. It’s weird and Monty Pythonesquely ironic that a ‘business bank’..emphasis on the ‘business’ bit..does not know how to make its business profitable. The question begs ‘Why?’. For various reasons. One being the awfully easy one that they’re not ‘business’ people who run the darn thing. They are too busy paying themselves bonuses for making losses, oblivious of the fact they are ‘hangers-on’ with a civil service-type mentality of having no ‘skin in the game’ re the profit and loss aspect of any respectable company of people have to have. This ‘having skin in the game’ is paramount in every human activity which involves ‘survival’ of the entity you belong to. It could be the fact you are deprived of your bonuses when you fail to make a profit or you get sacked or demoted bigtime if you fail in your job. Anything which makes you really try your utmost to succeed will do as the spurs to do well. ‘Jobsworths’ need to be found out everywhere and dealt with fairly but ‘robustly’. The ‘skin in the game’ element is vital in all activities on all levels otherwise sloppiness/ mediocrity come to rule resulting in failure (and loss of good people’s hard earned cash). Socialism comes in many forms..under various names. It’s a silent killer that stalks…
March 3, 2024
Wednesday Budget might be instructive.
Hunt nailed down to pretend he is balancing books, and giving some elastic on decreased taxes, while not shifting a jot.
Otherwise really bribing the fools out there to put the cross in their box.
March 3, 2024
For a world government to success it needs world problems to fix and control …we’re had a world financial crisis, covid, mass migration, appeasement with tyrant countries, climate change and political wokeness all directed towards the west …we need to step back and see whats going on
March 3, 2024
They are playing with our money like a 5-year-old plays with choo-choo trains.
Get them out!
March 4, 2024
and loves watching them derail.