UK's Mandelson: Full-Scale Bank Nationalization Not Needed Now
08 März 2009 - 12:00PM
Dow Jones News
Full-scale nationalization of ailing U.K. banks is neither
"necessary or desirable" at this stage, U.K. business secretary
Peter Mandelson said Sunday in an interview with BBC
television.
"At the moment what the government is able to do is exercise a
great deal of influence over the restructuring change and reform of
the banks and their direction, without taking the final step of
removing shareholders from the banks," he said.
Mandelson also said the U.K. government is "very focused" on the
financial problems of Vauxhall, the U.K. arm of General Motors
Corp. (GM), and is in talks with the German government over taking
collaborative action to maintain operations.
"Vauxhall is in terrible trouble - I've spoken three times in
the last week to the president of General Motors in Europe, I've
also spoken to the German economics minister because their plants
are similarly affected and we will aproach what we need to do
together on this," he said.
General Motors has pressed the U.K. government to take a GBP500
million stake in Vauxhall as part of a pan-European rescue of the
ailing carmaker's European operations.
-By Joe Parkinson, Dow Jones Newswires; +44 207842 9291;
joe.parkinson@dowjones.com