Vultures gather over the Co-op Bank

http://www.theguardian.com/business/2013/nov/04/vultures-coop-bank

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It is difficult to see how the Co-op Bank can remain a "world leader in ethical investment" (Letters, 4 November) when it is to be significantly owned by vulture fund Aurelius Capital. Aurelius is trying to force Argentina to default on its debts in a legal case in New York. The vulture fund bought up Argentinian debt cheaply when the country was in crisis. Unlike other creditors, it refused to renegotiate the amount of debt owed, and is now seeking huge profits out of the South American country. Along with fellow vulture fund NML Capital, it has bizarrely got a US court to rule that if the vultures don't get their huge profit, no one should get anything.

Vulture funds show most starkly the moral failures of our out-of-control financial system, from seeking vast profits out of crises in Argentina, Liberia or Greece, to demutualising the Co-op Bank through their aggressive strategy. A bank owned by vulture funds cannot be considered ethical. Tim Jones Policy officer, Jubilee Debt Campaign

• The Co-op Bank's hedge-fund owners might well be prepared to keep its ethical stance in the short term, for branding reasons. But any bank constitution won't be worth the paper it's written on once it appears to stand in the way of profit. Rather than fighting an unwinnable war, a better strategy for disgusted members might be to switch, if they can, to an ethically tolerable alternative. Meanwhile, the wider labour, co-operative, green and social investment movements should get to work on founding a new bank, perhaps in association with Triodos Bank (which, I understand, plans to introduce a current account in 2016). The Co-operative Bank is lost; start afresh. Richard Middleton Castle Douglas, Dumfries and Galloway

• If there was a word to label the amalgamation of an ethical bank and hedge-fund backing, it would undoubtedly be an oxymoron. Craig Alexander Ashwell, Rutland

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