Yorkshire Building Society in merger talks

YORKSHIRE Building Society is in merger talks with Norwich and Peterborough Building Society.

The Bradford-based organisation, the UK’s second largest building society, said the merger talks were subject to “completion of full and satisfactory due diligence” and would take a number of weeks to complete.

The Yorkshire said the merger would only take place following “the satisfaction of certain pre-conditions”.

In a statement it said: “Yorkshire has consistently said that it would consider mergers with smaller societies if these can be completed on a basis that would be in the long term interests of its current and future members.

“The Society has demonstrated resilience throughout the recession and has maintained one of the strongest financial positions of any major UK lender, while continuing to deliver value and financial security to its members.

“During this period it has shown its ability to successfully carry out large and complex mergers.”

Yorkshire Building Society has approximately 2.6m members, 178 branches and assets of more than £30bn. Over the last three years it has merged with Barnsley Building Society and Chelsea Building Society.