February 27, 2009

Broke bank chief in pension stand-off

Per BBC Scotland, the former chief of the Royal Bank of Scotland Sir Fred Goodwin is refusing to give up his £16 million ($22.6 million) pension, despite his company posting record losses of £24 billion ($34 billion) and receiving a multi-billion dollar bailout from the British Government.

The story is headline news at all the Scottish newspaper websites. Edinburgh's The Scotsman reports that the former bank boss is "defiant" about giving up any of his pension. Meanwhile The Glasgow Herald uses video interviews to tell the story and Aberdeen's Press & Journal claims that Sir Fred is "furious" details of his pension plan have been leaked to the media.

Here's what Twitter users have to say on the subject - including news that Sir Fred Goodwin might himself be on Twitter:

@handlewithcare (Shoreditch, London) Surprised that Fred Goodwin's £16m pension makes the front page when the govt's £300bn bet on RBS gets shunted to page 6




@DavidTurner1 (Yorkshire, UK) Hands up who expected RBS's Fred Goodwin to give up his pension? He's a banker - if they gave a damn, they'd be social workers.




@LesArmitage (Rufford, England) Hey I bank at the RBS too. Will they dump my toxic debt with theirs :)




@Jimble1 (Swindon, England) Can you believe Sir Fred Goodwin is unwilling to give up any of his pension even though he has manged to lead RBS to failure




@GillyLiz (London, England) I think they should give the RBS boss a big chinese burn until he coughs up his pension




@foshjedi2004 (Swansea, Wales) thinks a 600k pension to the RBS guy is wrong - he should be forced to have a state pension! Its not as if he isn't already a millionaire..




@ryanajarrett (Kent, England) Apparently ex-RBS boss Fred Goodwin is on Twitter - is this for real? Either way, I wonder how much abuse he'll get! http://bit.ly/yqUtJ


However, the @sirfredgoodwin account does not appear to be authentic. Its first updates only came hours ago, and as a breaking news story develops, that is often a red flag for an impostor.

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