Analysis: Bank Regrets Robertson Deal By David Luhnow
EDINBURGH, Scotland (Reuters) - The Bank of Scotland entered an ill-fated business deal with American tele-evangelist Pat Robertson thinking it was dealing with Robertson the businessman.
What it got instead was Pat the preacher.
Robertson's religious views and controversial comments about homosexuals in Scotland undid a promising deal to set up a new U.S. telephone-based bank which was aimed initially at the preacher's considerable flock.
The Bank of Scotland said Saturday it was pulling the plug on the television evangelist after he responded to controversy in Scotland over the deal by saying Scotland was a ``dark land'' influenced by a lobby of homosexuals.
That left Scotland's oldest bank Sunday licking its wounds from a venture that infuriated hundreds of its customers and dented its reputation as an institution with an almost infallible business sense.
Getting out of bed with Robertson could also prove a costly divorce. Scottish newspapers Sunday said the bank would end up paying Robertson some $3 million to allow the bank to continue the venture with a new partner.
Bank officials would not discuss any details of the deal.
Gay rights groups Sunday welcomed news the bank had ended its relationship with Robertson, founder of the right-wing Christian Coalition and a former U.S. presidential candidate.
``The bank deserves credit for getting out of the deal. But it's very unfortunate that it should have to pay any money to a man who clearly used it to promote his intolerant brand of politics,'' said Tim Hopkins, spokesman for gay rights group Equality Network.
Newspapers also welcomed the news, but criticized the bank's directors for having failed to see that Robertson's religious views -- seen as extreme in much of Europe -- would cost the bank precious public relations points.
When the deal was made public in March, activists from gay rights groups to minority groups condemned the bank and a handful of protesters chained themselves to its headquarters. Even ordinary Scots and Scottish churches criticized the deal.
``If (CEO) Peter Burt or one of his colleagues had popped down to the bookstore and ordered a copy of one of Robertson's books ... they would have quickly found the measure of the man,'' the Glasgow-based Sunday Herald wrote.
``In the three months since the deal became public, the bank's staff have been verbally abused, its bank notes have been defaced and its reputation for financial rectitude seriously diminished,'' it added.
Bank officials said they were simply doing business with a businessman and not a religious figure -- a notion Robertson himself dismissed.
``I don't remember being cut in two any time recently .... I think it's all part of one package. It's not two people,'' he told Scottish reporters.
The bank will now probably set about trying to mend fences with some 500 customers who pulled their accounts. According to the Scotsman newspaper, the bank will send a letter to all its customers apologizing for having entered the deal.
It may also try quickly to find a new partner for the venture to shore up its flagging stock price, which sank almost four percent last week on uncertainty over the deal.
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