laugh - I nearly paid my licence fee

nicholas on 2004-07-23T13:22:34

BBC news is going downhill. Don't they bother checking their facts any more?

Abbey was one of the first UK building societies to privatise - a move which saw it change its name from Abbey National.
  1. It demutualised, not privatised. Not just a picky point - it actually a move in the opposite direction from "privatisation' - a move from private (mutual) ownership to a publicly traded stock.
  2. The name change from "Abbey National" to "Abbey" occurred over 10 years after the demutualisation. Not as part of it, as the story implies.