any comments, thoughts, on this stock.

Agree with you about EU referendum position. Re NRK a complete wipe out for shareholders could reflect badly on the government when the press start dishing out the blame. He may get lucky, then he may not.

It got to 150p then, still not buying I may go in at 50p

Agree with what you say hewittalan6. I was just trying to look at it from the govt view point with an election coming up.

I have a thing about the FSA, so I love the idea of attaching blame to them.
Since their inception they have overseen (orchestrated) many financial scandals and have somehow managed to make life impossible for many financial businesses.
They have also overseen the decimation of "industrial branch" financial advice and then bemoaned the lack of it. They have made "profit" a dirty word, then bemoaned the lack of professionalism in the industry, and just when we believe they are as bad as they can get, they replace prescriptive rules with statements of principle then leave the industry to work out what the hell they mean, with them waiting to prosecute when the industry gets it wrong.
That kind of track record and muddle headedness is bound to lead to many more NRK scenarios.
There. Blast over.

alan .... do you want to see lending pretty much government controlled, for i certainly don't ..... if you concur, then so long as the financial institutions stay within the rules of the time, there is no blame to level other than at the board(s) of the institutions that find themselves in a deep hole.

i actually find it more than a little sad that whenever something goes wrong, whether it is an NRK that goes bankrupt, or someone trips over a slightly raised paving stone, or falls down the restaurant stairs when somewhat inebriated, blame has to be attached elsewhere, preferably with some swingeing fine or similar attaching.

Do you remember to BCCI?

yes, but certainly not the detail .... i supect you are saying that in that instance there was some malfeasance or similar ..... so far, NRK have shown nothing worse that (gross) incompetence

What I was alluding to is at that time the BOE was condemned by depositors for granting BCCI a banking licence and thereafter not properly monitoring their activities.

what was the final outcome? ..... was BCCI actually a UK company? .... were the depositors protected? .... were there any criminal charges?

No cynic. I prefer caveat emptor.

Cynic... yes...no....yes.

so do i, though i think it is right that depositors and mortgagees are protected to a greater or lesser extent

BTW. If NRK's depositors have to be compensated, this is by way of the levy that all financial businesses pay every year to contribute to a fund for just such an emergency.
It will cost nothing in tax 's. It will come from industry profits and if the pot is not big enough, the FSA will simply charge more for the next few years. the only way joe public will pay is in higher financial services costs, but they are mainly capped now anyway, so the industry will have to cost cut.
Bound to lead to the better advice the FSA is set up to promote.

halifax .... if there were criminal charges that stuck, then that is a somewhat different scenario .... di the depositors, as opposed to investors, get any money back? ..... presumably they did, at least up to $30/32k, or was this lifebelt only introduced subsequently

Railtrack shareholders got nowt....
Receivership only works when you want out at any price. If NRK was put up for sale the most likely buyers (UK Banks) , have already looked and turned away.
So who wants to buy somewhat shakey mortgages (that's how they seem)...?

Is NRK solvent? Yes!....only if the international interest-rates are below (say 5%)...but as they are above this and likely to get higher, esp for an outfit like NRK who need the money - - which makes NRK loss-making for the forseeable future weeks, if not Months, or longer.

Of course Banks should have a Long and Steady view of the market - NRK is lending 25-year Mortgages, - so presumably they think they will still be here in 25 years.

How their execs planned to avoid problems when the international rates increase, I don't know - and it seems to me they never earned their salaries. . . for this was a time-bomb already primed....not "IF" - only "When". . . . very nasty.

I held NRK for a short while during this turmoil and shock falls . . . . but it seems to me the value of NRK cannot be very high - unless they can find a large fund of cash that is long-term....to cover the 25-year mortgages they already have.

Let's suppose Interest rates go down...(.so NRK is more than solvent...) - - would anyone want to pay top-dollar for the stock (in effect the Mortgage Book)? - I doubt it - for they would worry the interest-rates will rise and hey-presto, problem again!
So between a value based on today's sp 1.50 and what might be fair-value ( about 3. 50 perhaps - there is a figure that would be "right" - but only as long as lower interest-rates remain ( they don't, -it's pretend).
So is the upper-figure correct - no-one knows and it moves between about 2 and even 6 - (but that must be too high)....so let's say $3.50 is a safe "upper" figure...
SO what about the lower figure (1.50) - is this really undervalued? - well, (and this is why I sold) it depends upon international movements - if the financial markets are happy then maybe interest-rates will remain fixed - but if not then fear will drive that figure down to maybe 1. . . . .
Therefore the "correct" price for NRK will lie towards the lower figure (for safety) and the lowest upper figure (safety).
- - - Let's say 1 lowest....and 3 upper (taking a bit off)
That's a fair-value of 2 . . . . yet no-one will offer this - it's above current Market price so not a good starting point...bnecause when a Bid is made, the Bidder offers what they think they can get away with - just a tad above . . . . .but here there is no bidder . . .. .so any deal done with a consortium of Banks might complain about costs and so on, risks, debts, bad image etc.....and frankly if they bid 1 I'd be very happy...for it is possible we could see the same trick played on Railtrack Shareholders - where the business was taken-over without paying anything (if memorey serves)...
Watch out! Railtrack set a precident......the Public didn't care because it was shareholders - conveniently forgetting many of their Pensions would be affected . . .and here it's shareholders - those grubby money-grabbing oiks that take all the profits......huh.

Receivership would be a total ruination, for NRK, IMHO. The only bidder would be the BoE and they'd sell-on the Mortgages at a discount, so taking NRK for nothing, or a nominal 1p or some fudge so those with Mortgages and Shares would get something and everyone else gets nowt.

If there was no market for NRK shares....what would be the off-market price? I fear the Government will do something nasty, dressed up as a rescue, for which shareholder will have to contribute. . ..everything.

I don't trust this Government.
That finally was why I sold at a substantial loss. We are getting out of normal Market forces to something I don't think anyone understands - call it Market Spin.
All is, er, IMHO.


Not sure about Spread-Bets - if the stock is suspended . . . are Shorts cancelled? - or only those bets that are in profit? - - - - all risky times and with the Governmnet angle - - - Bargepoles.

Cynic you are avoiding the issue which is quite clear somebody took their "eye off the ball"and allowed NRK's directors to "gamble" with the depositors funds. The intervention of the goverment is coincidental and purely driven by politics.

The intervention of the government is prescribed in these circumstances.
It was obviously foreseen as a potential problem because some mandarin somewhere wrote it into the rules of lender of last resort!
Thereby hangs a question. If the problem was foreseen, surely someone must have forecast the circumstances that would give rise to it. Ipso facto, why did they not spot it sooner? And if it was foreseen then there must also be a disaster recovery policy. The FSA (God bless 'em) demands that even a two bit village insurance broker has a disaster recovery procedure in place.

cynic - re paving styones, blame culture etc.
Basically, I agree but only as afar as it goes - for when you look further it should be obvious that the blind cannot be expected to see faulty paving.

Similarly we have Rules for Directorsw and (hope) expect the FSA to charge anyone breaking that trust between Directors and shareholders - - but time again we see foolhardy directors selling shaers just before the sp falls (and nothing is done, like jailing them!)...we see companies having a happy agm and within weeks a statement saying they are trading at a severe loss (so sp falls) - yet no-one believes this dire situation waqsn't known in the company (so why does the fsa not act?....it was a false Market!).
IF we let individuals take their own responsibility then you don't need the FSA ( or the similarly named Food Standards Agency -!!).....let Market sink or swim on trust -

Just how long would that work?

You'd get the situation where any stock on "that market" would not be touched...it would be seen as a Nest of vipers.
If NRK goes to the wall...that may save the Government some money (our money!). . . . but it will do great harm and that's another reason for Regulation, to act as an overseer - but the way it appears to work is fundamentally flawed IMHO - it's a waste of time and money - having insufficient time to investigate day-to-day and isufficient power when it's all over . . . plus we don't know whose interests they are there to protect.

With civilisation we have to accept rules and someone has to police those rules.
It's just that we have too many of one and . . . . .

alan ... not sure that your logic is correct ..... certainly the board of NRK deluded itself that nothing could ever go wrong (heard it beofre have we?), and insofar as the board was in charge of the running the company, it carries the can .... whether or not there was anything criminal, in the broadest sense, remains to be see, though i doubt it.

as for BoE being the lender of the last resort, am i not correct in thinking that NRK (or any other financial institution) had to prove that it was lack of margin rather than being truly insolvent? .... i am sure you will accept that there is a considerable difference, even if many a company has had to fold for rather similar reasons - e.g. lack of cashflow rather than profitability.

hangon ..... not sure of the exact rules, but if a company goes into liquidation, the lender of the stock for the (short) CFDs has to allow a repurchase at some negotiated price.

hangon ..... it will do far far less harm to the system to allow NRK to go into liquidation or similar than for gov't to intervene on behalf of the shareholders