“Personal loans to soak up your seasonal excess (Guardian Unlimited)” plus 2 more

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• Personal loans to soak up your seasonal excess (Guardian Unlimited)
• Glazers take £23M out of Man Utd in loans (tribalfootball.com)
• In India, gold loans gain popularity as precious metal's prices soar (Washington Post)

Personal loans to soak up your seasonal excess (Guardian Unlimited) Posted: 12 Jan 2010 01:21 PM PST Buy Location: Minimum price: £20,000£30,000£40,000£50,000£60,000£70,000£80,000£90,000£100,000£110,000£120,000£130,000£140,000£150,000£160,000£170,000£180,000£190,000£200,000£225,000£250,000£275,000£300,000£325,000£350,000£375,000£400,000£425,000£450,000£475,000£500,000£600,000£700,000£800,000£900,000£1,000,000£1,100,000£1,200,000£1,300,000£1,400,000£1,500,000£1,600,000£1,700,000£1,800,000£1,900,000£2,000,000£2,100,000£2,200,000£2,300,000£2,400,000£2,500,000£2,600,000£2,700,000£2,800,000£3,000,000 Maximum price: £20,000£30,000£40,000£50,000£60,000£70,000£80,000£90,000£100,000£110,000£120,000£130,000£140,000£150,000£160,000£170,000£180,000£190,000£200,000£225,000£250,000£275,000£300,000£325,000£350,000£375,000£400,000£425,000£450,000£475,000£500,000£600,000£700,000£800,000£900,000£1,000,000£1,100,000£1,200,000£1,300,000£1,400,000£1,500,000£1,600,000£1,700,000£1,800,000£1,900,000£2,000,000£2,100,000£2,200,000£2,300,000£2,400,000£2,500,000£2,600,000£2,700,000£2,800,000£3,000,000+ Min bedrooms: No preference1+2+3+4+5+ Five Filters featured article: Chilcot Inquiry. Available tools: PDF Newspaper, Full Text RSS, Term Extraction. This posting includes an audio/video/photo media file: Download Now

Glazers take £23M out of Man Utd in loans (tribalfootball.com) Posted: 12 Jan 2010 01:46 AM PST Revelations today over the Glazer family's use of loans from Manchester United is sure to anger supporters. The Telegraph says the Glazer family and companies they control have taken £23 million in personal loans and consultancy fees out of Manchester United since they took over in 2006, and could receive a further £42 million over the next seven years. Documents circulated to potential investors on Monday reveal that family members have effectively used United as a bank, borrowing £10million from the club at favourable rates since 2006. Companies related to the family and their trusts have also charged United £13 million in consultancy, management and administration fees in the same period, and could be paid a further £42 million over the seven-year term of a bond issue announced on Monday. The disclosures, which will further outrage supporters opposed to the Glazers' role at the club, come in the prospectus for the £500 million bond issue officially launched in an attempt to refinance the club's towering £700 million debts. Five Filters featured article: Chilcot Inquiry. Available tools: PDF Newspaper, Full Text RSS, Term Extraction.

In India, gold loans gain popularity as precious metal's prices soar (Washington Post) Posted: 11 Jan 2010 09:00 PM PST Left with no other options, he did the unthinkable: He pawned his wife's gold jewelry and his mother's, an act many Indians consider a disgraceful sign of desperation. "It was a very difficult decision. I had to swallow my pride like a bitter pill," Garg said as he opened a red velvet jewelry box and handed his wife's wedding bangles, necklace and earrings to a gold loan executive at a bank in New Delhi. "If people in my neighborhood find out, they will ridicule us." Though seeking a gold loan was culturally bold, Garg said it was more private than going to a neighborhood moneylender. Nearly every middle-class Indian family owns gold jewelry, which is central to weddings and rituals, and few traditionally have been willing to part with it to secure loans. But with gold prices soaring, banks have begun to push customers toward gold loans. The transactions have become even more popular as small personal lending dries up because of rising defaults on risky loans. "India is one of the largest consumers of gold in the world, and about 90 percent of the gold in India lies with individuals and not in banks," said Biju Pillai, executive vice president of HDFC Bank, which has the largest share of gold loans among Indian banks. "But the paradox is that gold is the least leveraged product for loans. We want gold to come out of the closet." The bank's gold loan business grew 55 percent last year, he said. The market is huge, but so is the cultural barrier. Over the years, many melodramatic Bollywood movies have reinforced the stigma, portraying the sale of gold as a sign of a man's inability to earn a living. The taboo is so deep-seated that Indians were shocked to shame in 1991 when the government pledged its gold deposits abroad to borrow money during a crunch. Through a string of television, radio and print advertisements in the past few months, banks and finance companies aggressively are pushing Indians to shed their inhibitions. Many advertisements show women initiating the decision. In one commercial, when a sari-clad woman gently suggests pawning her gold jewelry to upgrade the family store, her husband leaves the dinner table in a huff, mouthing a cultural cliche: "I am not in such a bad way that I have to pawn off my wife's jewelry." "Through our campaign, we want to bring a revolution in the age-old Indian mind-set about family gold jewelry," said Avinav Chaubey, marketing head of Muthoot Finance, a family-owned firm expanding across India, with 400 branches planned in the next two years. "Every Indian family buys gold jewelry, but only 10 percent of it is worn regularly. The rest of it sits idle, locked up in bank safes. It is an unproductive way of keeping such a high-value asset." As gold prices have risen during the global economic slump, middle-class Indians have returned to their age-old preference for gold as a safe investment after flirting briefly with stock markets and mutual funds. Bankers say the default rate is much lower for gold loans because Indians do not want to risk losing their family jewelry. And unlike traditional personal loans, no credit checks are needed for gold loans. "Getting a gold loan is about 4 to 6 percent cheaper than procuring regular bank loans. We take five minutes, but a regular loan takes several weeks of paperwork," said K.R. Bijimon, chief general manager of Muthoot Finance. The banks now want to convince young Indians that pledging gold is a smart decision and not just a last resort. Ranvijay Singh, a 35-year-old trader, stood at a Muthoot Finance counter with three of his wife's intricately carved gold bangles for a $2,000 loan. "My wife is an equal partner in my life; she offered her bangles to me," he said. "She said this is more honorable than borrowing money from friends and relatives." Five Filters featured article: Chilcot Inquiry. Available tools: PDF Newspaper, Full Text RSS, Term Extraction.

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