Elect James Sherwin-Smith to represent Nationwide building society members
This Is Money / Mail on Sunday has launched a campaign today to save shareholder meetings, as it is rightly concerned that virtual AGMs limit the ability for owners from holding organisations to account, and may even be illegal. The timing couldn’t be better given Nationwide members still have the opportunity to vote and attend […]
Kalyeena Makortoff, writing in The Guardian today, has highlighted Nationwide’s blatant double standard when it comes to executive pay. Nationwide is arguing that its executives should be paid in a comparable way to executives at large UK banks, but as Nationwide is a building society, members should not be granted a binding vote on the […]
Private Eye (issue 1652, page 8) draws attention to the award of a damehood to Debbie Crosbie, Nationwide CEO, under the title of “KING’S BIRTHDAY TREATS: Honours round-up.” If you’re a Nationwide member, and don’t agree with paying a mutual society CEO 280x what a junior member of staff receives, you may want to use […]
My thanks to Michael Bow at the Telegraph for a long article examining the impact Dame Debbie Crosbie is having at Nationwide building society. Read the full article here (25 June 2025): How Nationwide’s £7m boss became Britain’s most controversial banker Michael quoted me throughout the article, sharing some of my concerns with regard to […]
Great to read this article from Patrick Tooher in today’s Daily Mail addressing this important topic (which also kindly quoted me). You can read the article online: Don’t turn up! Big firms bar investors from AGMs Limiting the ability for shareholders and members to hold boards to account via online-only (and thus often highly stage-managed) […]
My thanks to Patrick Hosking at The Times for putting Nationwide’s recent “big thank you” payment under scrutiny, and for this final paragraph. Read his article in the Times: Nationwide is paying out £600m to its members. But should it be? (19 March 2025) I rather liked this final paragraph: “Sherwin-Smith is too purist about […]
My thanks to Patrick Tooher and Jane Denton for writing this article for the Daily Mail (online edition: This is Money). It follows a longer post I wrote about the “Big Thank You” payment: The Big Nationwide “Thank You”: £50 for what and why? You can read the article in full here: Nationwide forced to […]
My thanks to Simon English, who wrote this article in the Daily Mail (online edition: This is Money) examining the recent increase in members’ credit card interest rates. “Rampant profiteering” had to be justified – see my detailed research here into the history of credit card offers and rates in this article: Is Nationwide becoming […]
I am grateful to Akila Quinio who quoted me in this Financial Times piece published today regarding Building Society membership: What does it mean to be a building society member? (2 August 2024) She asked me three questions given I am running for election to the board of Nationwide: my full answers are below. If you’d […]