DIARY OF A TAKEOVER - THE STORY OF RBS AND NATWEST

I am at the SDC in Cheadle to see how the closure process and the handling of redundancies are going. I sit in on an interview between...

As we expected following the comment at the weekend, RBS announces its bid this morning. It is worth 0.968 of an RBS share (why didn't...

There are stories in the press saying that there have been discussions between NatWest and Royal Bank of Scotland which came close to...

We publish another attack on the BoS estimates of IT related cost savings. How can the unproven BankWest system handle the scale and...

Jane has important work meetings and daughter has tonsillitis, so I take the day off to be a caring modem father. We make Christmas...

I am looking at whether there are realistic alternatives to Andersen in terms of doing Redgrave. The other consultants who seem to my...

Jim tells me that their Redgrave meeting with Ron went well. Ron wants to push on with the work but balance the "pro" view with a robust...

Ron Sandler calls a meeting for senior people to discuss "low morale". I can't really see that it needs a high-powered get together to...

Meet Jim and the Andersen guys. They met Richard Delbridge last Friday to discuss Redgrave and it went well; they are seeing Ron Sandler...

I get a chance to read our latest defence document, issued yesterday; the "hubris and parochialism" press release was obviously just a...

The press comment is pretty good this morning; as expected, hubris and parochialism is widely quoted. Jim Mann and I have a lengthy...

Meet with Paul C. He is the Andersens partner responsible for the NatWest account, and I wasn’t sure of him when we first met. He looks...

I meet with Jim Mann, who seems to be in charge of the project, for an update on Redgrave. He met the other day with Mark Fisher, Tim...

I attend a meeting of the Partnership Sourcing working group. This is a DTI (Department of Trade and Industry) sponsored initiative to...

Another Functional Heads meeting is called to give an update on redundancies, in particular how we handle voluntary versus compulsory. It...

I'm working at home, writing the draft press release to highlight our e-procurement activities. It's amazing how with a bit of effort you...

Meet F, who works for Jim Mann in Group Operations and Technology and who doesn't have a job following the GHO cuts. Group Ops is going...

Bernard Horn makes his first visit to Kings Cross to meet the purchasing team since he became my boss. He was quite upset on the phone...