The boss of Nationwide Building Society has defended the customer-owned mutual’s decision not to give its members a say on its £2.9 billion takeover of Virgin Money.
A group of Nationwide’s members have mounted a campaign to force the mutual to allow them a vote on the deal, which would significantly expand Britain’s biggest building society but is also likely to be fraught with potential execution risks.
Virgin Money’s shareholders have voted on the transaction, which they approved on Wednesday, but Nationwide is not required either under building society movement rules or the mutual’s own regulations to hold a similar poll of its 16 million members.
“Actually, we’ve seen really limited demand in our customer member base for a vote,” Debbie Crosbie, Nationwide’s chief executive
