Skinner hit by credit crunch

Frank Skinner has revealed that he may lose half of his life savings because of the credit crunch.

On the advice of his banker, Coutts, he had invested much of his fortune in a supposedly low-risk account with American finance group AIG.

However, the company came close to collapse last September – and needed a bailout of up to $182 billion in US government guarantees to stay afloat.

Skinner has recovered half of his money, but he’s been told there’s a chance he may lose the rest, which is currently frozen until 2012.

‘For three weeks I thought I’d lost the lot,’ he told the Sunday Times. ‘Me and my girlfriend were having conversations about where we would live and stuff, like a 1960s black-and-white film: I can still work. We’ll be OK. We don’t need a flat this big. We like walking holidays! I can do the clubs again.’

He says his advisers are ‘fairly sure’ he’ll get the rest back once the accounts are unfrozen, but added: ‘Fairly sure is not a phrase I want to hear. So I’m still in that position. I don’t know where my savings are.’

Skinner, 52, has since lent his support to a campaign started by Nectar card tycoon Sir Keith Mills to claim compensation from Coutts, alleging they gave customers bad advice in recommending AIG Life Premier Bonds – a charge the Queen’s bank denies.

‘If the case continues I’ll certainly go with it,’ Skinner said. ‘Not often I get to be the small man. I’m rather looking forward to my day in court.

But he joked: ‘Can you sue the Queen’s bank? I don’t want to die in a Parisian subway in mysterious circumstances.’

Perhaps aptly, Skinner is hosting a Credit Crunch Cabaret at the Edinburgh Fringe this month.

Published: 2 Aug 2009