New bidder steps in for £16bn Bradford & Bingley loans
A NEW entrant has launched a bid for Bradford & Bingley’s £16bn worth of loans.
TSB, the challenger bank which was spun out of Lloyds Banking Group, is up against US private equity houses Blackstone and Cerberus for the loans.
It would be the biggest-ever asset sale launched by the Government, after Bradford & Bingley was nationalised following its collapse during the financial crisis.
The loans, mainly buy-to-let mortgages, are being sold by UK Asset Resolution which manages Bradford & Bingley’s and Northern Rock’s “bad” assets.
The process to sell the loans was relaunched after the June vote to leave the EUropean Union stalled the sale.
Earlier this year, in May 2016, the Government sold off Bradford & Bingley’s mortgage servicing business to Computershare, an Australian stock tansfer company.
Bradford & Bingley was formed in 1964 after the merger of the Bradford Equitable Building Society and the Bingley Permanent Building Society, both of which were established in 1851.
In December 2000 the Society demutualised and floated on the London Stock Exchange but B&B, which specialised in buy-to-let mortgages, was nationalised during the recession in 2008.
