Nationwide Building Society part of the BoE bail-out scheme?

[buildersmate]

How can the Government potentially take preference shares in the Nationwide Building Society when it is still a mutual society owned by the (long-standing) members, and not a bank with shareholders?

[kempie]

By definition, a mutual society is not owned by external shareholders. If it accepts a significant proportion of external, tradeable, capital with voting rights given to the providers of that capital, it would not conform to the rules governing mutuals.

�25bn in extra capital will be available from the Treasury in exchange for preference shares. These will pay a fixed rate of interest instead of a dividend and do not carry voting rights. Consider it as a preferred fixed rate loan with partial ownership as the collateral.

[buildersmate]

Well done Kempie - thought you might be able to explain it.
Just keen to make sure one of my long-standing reasons for maintaining involvement with Nationwide (namely the future prospect of a few readies when it eventually does go the way of all the others) hadn't disappeared up the swanny overnight.