wird doch schon mindestens 4 Wochen darüber spekuliert. Hierzu aus der The Times:
September 15, 2009
Williams & Glyn's bank could make comebackPatrick Hosking, Financial Editor
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Fine Fare, Bejam, MacFisheries, Timothy Whites, Augustus Barnett, What Records ... names familiar to anyone who visited a high street in 1970s or 1980s Britain. And completely unknown to everyone else.
Largely unlamented, they were boarded up or rebadged up to a quarter of a century ago, pushed aside by smarter competitors or subsumed into larger organisations with different names. But one high street name from the era of the Bay City Rollers and the three-day week may be about to make a comeback: Williams & Glyn’s Bank, which traded from about 300 branches across England and Wales until 1985.
Royal Bank of Scotland — which owned the business, dumped the name and still controls the trademark — is understood to be considering breathing new life into the brand, although it declines to comment on such reports.
Unlike other brand relaunches, this would not be an attempt to exploit nostalgia for the Williams & Glyn’s name. Unlike punk rock, Birds Eye Arctic Roll, Tom Jones and Black Forest gateau, this is not another fondly remembered 1970s treasure “back by popular demand”.
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Instead RBS, which is 70 per cent-owned by the taxpayer after the bank bailout of last October, is seeking ways to keep regulators in Brussels at bay. The resurrection of Williams & Glyn’s (W&G) would give RBS an additional bargaining chip as it seeks to win approval from Brussels for its participation in the Government’s Asset Protection Scheme — a form of state aid.
Neelie Kroes, the European Competition Commissioner, is seeking in return divestments by RBS to beef up competition. A separated W&G, perhaps given RBS’s 300 branches in England and Wales, could, if necessary, be sold off or ringfenced in some way.
Lloyds Banking Group, which is also negotiating with Brussels, has already positioned itself in a similar way, abandoning plans to close its Cheltenham & Gloucester chain so that the reprieved subsidiary could be sold as a potential remedy.
However, marketing consultants said the idea of reviving W&G might work anyway. Rita Clifton, chairman of the London operation of Interbrand, the consultants, said that the brand had a little more cachet than those of conventional banks. “It gives off dignified and trustworthy vibes. And it hasn’t been polluted by the banking crisis. Although what will really matter is the substance of what lies beneath,” she said.
For RBS, distancing some of its operations from the humiliation of the past two years could be attractive. Its image has been dragged down because of its vast losses, its dependence on taxpayers for £500 billion in loans and guarantees, the Sir Fred Goodwin pension debacle and its reluctance to crack down on executive pay — bankers are still being hired on multimillion-pound guaranteed packages.
W&G, dormant for 24 years, has none of the baggage of the past two. Despite being seen as historic, the name in its final form existed only for 15 years to 1985. It traces its roots to Richard Glyn, who opened a private bank in Lombard Street in the heart of the City in 1753, trading as Vere, Glyn & Hallifax. The business prospered and in 1890 played a part in the rescue of the much bigger and grander Baring Brothers (the first time that it collapsed).
After various name changes, it was acquired by Royal Bank of Scotland on the eve of the Second World War. Only in 1970 was it merged with two other RBS offshoots — Williams Deacon’s Bank and National Bank — to form Williams and Glyn’s.
During its short life, W&G acquired a slight cachet, or at least its account-holders thought so. It claimed to be a bit friendlier and more responsive than its bigger competitors and was the first clearing bank to scrap bank charges for personal accounts in credit.
RBS dumped the name in 1985, rebadging the branches in its name as it sought to bring the Scottish franchise south of the border, allowing it to claim to be Britain’s first truly nationwide bank and, at a stroke, cut out a string of advertising, marketing and other head-office costs.
Reviving an old brand would go against the trend of the past few years in financial services, when old names have been fast disappearing. HSBC dumped the name of Midland Bank, once the biggest bank in the world, in 1999, seven years after buying it. Santander, the Spanish group, is in the process of excising the names of its British acquisitions — Abbey, Alliance & Leicester and Bradford & Bingley.
Aviva, the insurance group, has finally grasped the nettle on its Norwich Union brand, scrapping it after investing tens of millions of pounds a year battering it into the consciousness of British consumers. |
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