As the world's financial markets go down quicker than a wannabe WAG in a bar full of footballers, the Icelandic banking collapse has claimed at least one high-profile local victim. Wirral Council had the relatively small sum of £2m invested with Heritable, a subsidiary of Landsbanki (http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2008/oct/10/localgovernment-iceland ). Wirral's council taxpayers will doubtless be alarmed by the news. However, other local authorities have lost at least twice as much from their Icelandic investments.
There's no word yet on whether Liverpool, Sefton, Knowsley & St Helens have also been affected. It would certainly round off 2008 nicely if an ashen-faced Warren Bradley stepped forth to reveal that, in addition to the £20m debt accrued from culture year, another couple of million quid had disappeared down an Icelandic geyser.
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2 comments:
Liverpool is probably safe from any risky investments given that long term financial mismanagement has left them without a pot to p*** in. Anything available from investments would, I suspect, have been cashed in.
Whereas most local authorities will hold 10s of millions of pounds in reserve for emergencies or unforseen events, Liverpool, thanks to their brilliant financial lib dem strategy had about £300k left to run the entire city for a year, from an annual turn over of at least £7 Billion.
This is one reason why the financial auditors were so very impressed with our caring administration who pretend that it was invested in services to vulnerable people, as so ably demonstrated in the radio interveiws with Icky the fire Bobby.
It has to be said that Pensioners in particular did well, especially those taking early retirement.
Just ask Mr Henshaw or Mr Halsall.
First class posts recently. Very well done.
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