On Jan 6, 7:41*pm, Lüko Willms wrote:
Am 05.01.2012 15:50, schrieb bob:

On 2 Jan., 13:04, Lüko *wrote:
Am 01.01.2012 23:27, schrieb Neil Williams:

If it's owned by the Government it's nationalised, whatever means that
ownership may take, IMO.

* * you have a strange concept of "nationalization"

It's the one that agrees with my dictionary (and wikipedia).

* *Throw the dictionary away. Did you write this Wikipedia article
yourself?

My dictionary is the Oxford English Dictionary. I suggest you look up
the way it is compiled. It is somewhat more rigorous than the opinion
of a non-native speaker on usenet.

* * Do you really believe that the composition of the shareholders makes
a qualitative difference for the commercial activity of a company?

Absolutely it does.

* *I'm sorry for you.

* There are reams and reams of laws governing the

relationships between parent companies and subsidiaries, and the stake
one company can hold in another before it is deemed to be a subsidiary

* *which does not mean that the owning company does exert any influence
on the activities of the management of the company.

If you follow this line of argument you would have to conclude that
Rupert and James Murdoch, who control News Corporation, do not control
the activities of News International (a separate UK company whose
shares happen to be owned by News Corporation) that until recently
published the News of the World. The events of the last few months
would strongly suggest that this line of argument is not a true
reflection of reality.

* * At which percentage of ownership by a state entity does a company
stop being "really a commercial operator"?

50% +1 share.

* *Didn't you say 30% before? Or was that somebody else? Those marks are
really very arbitrary, don't you think so? Too arbitrary to be a
scientific fact.

That was somebody else. Because many shareholders do not take an
active interest in the running of a company, the law recognises that
30% represents a large enough interest to exert a strong enough
interest in the company that once that point is reached an offer must
be made to buy the whole company. At 50%+1, it is impossible for any
other shareholder or group of shareholders to oppose the majority
owner.

* At that point the government shareholding is a

controlling interest, and the private shareholders combined can not
vote down any measure imposed by the controlling shareholder.

* *At Deutsche Bahn AG, the Federal Republic of Germany may not have
more than 3 seats out of 20 on the supervisory board. Can those three
really make a majority of 20?

As the owners, they have the right to nominate the membership of the
board as they see fit. That they chose only to exercise that right on
3 of the 20 seats is their prerogative, but if they chose to they
could nominate all 20.

* * Do you really believe this idiotic nonsense?

The courts and parliament do.

* * What about the Rothaus brewery, just to cite one little example?

Definitely.

Commerzbank?

Northern Rock? *RBS? *Yes to all of them.

* *And now Northern Rock does freely give credits for the lowest
interest rates, undercutting all other banks? Do you really believe this
bull****? Come down on earth!

The owners of Northern Rock (the UK government) believe that it is not
in the long term interest of the UK economy to run Northern Rock in
such a way, so they chose to run it on commercial lines instead. As
it is a nationalised company, the UK government is able to force
Northern Rock to run in any way the government choses. For the same
reason Rothaus does not undercut other brewers.

* *Life does not stick to your rigid ideas!

Amen to that.

Robin