No windfall for Chelsea building society customers
The £35 billion merger between the Yorkshire building society and the Chelsea building society will disappoint many Chelsea building society customers as there will be no windfall for them. The...The £35 billion merger between the Yorkshire building society and the Chelsea building society will disappoint many Chelsea building society customers as there will be no windfall for them. The Yorkshire building society would appear to be taking the lead in this particular transaction with the merged group to retain the Yorkshire building society name with the Chelsea building society retained as a separate brand name. There will also be losses amongst the 3,200 workers of the combined group.
The merged operation will have 2.7 million members and 178 branches with a goal of competing with the retail banks in the UK. This is highly likely to be the first of many mergers and acquisitions in the mutual sector where costs have increased and competition is more intense than ever before. While this particular transaction has been put forward as a merger of the two it is in reality a takeover of the Chelsea building society which has suffered substantial losses over the last few months.
It will be interesting to see how the Nationwide Building Society responds to this particular move as it has been at the top of the building society tree for some time now. Steady yourself for a major overhaul in the make-up of the UK mutual sector!
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