Fallon has appointed UBS bank and Goldman Sachs as 'joint global coordinators'. While the latters's reputation as the 'Giant Vampire Squid' of banking and it's invovlement in many of the financial scandals of the 2008 crash are well known, UBS's role in some historic privatisation failures are equally worrying.
In 1995, the Swiss bank now known as UBS absorbed Bristish investment bank Warburg, principal advisor on the 1996 Railtrack sell-off. By 1999, the Commons public accounts committee concluded that the botched privatisation had lost taxpayers £6 billion. Railtrack self-destructed and effectively had to be renationalised.
UBS's Warburg arm also had a hand in the disastrous 2002 sale of Bristish defence firm QinetiQ. An inspired choice!"
And....
" Lest anyone doubt that the Royal Mail is in safe hands, the group itself has a heavyweight management team. Royal Mail's senior independent director is Orna Ni-Chionna, last seen performing the same role at HMV before it's collapse earlier this year, and it's head of public relations is Shane O'Riordan, previously spin doctor at Halifax Bank of Scotland during it's slump and subsequent bailout in 2008."
