B&B secures private equity rescue funding

The Times reports today that Bradford and Bingley was rescued from the verge of collapse by private equity investors. This follows their report at the weekend on the dismissal of the Chief Executive and the profit warning they have issued. See my Saturday post on that topic.

The events at B&B are absolutely shambolic. Down from a high of 536p to 65p in two years time? Needless to say, this only furthers one’s scepticism about the financial health of UK financial institutions.

Shares in Bradford & Bingley, the UK’s biggest buy-to-let mortgage lender, fell more than 30 per cent this morning as it announced a profits warning and confirmed TPG, one of the world’s biggest private equity firms, is to take a 23 per cent stake in the group.

Steven Crawshaw is stepping down as chief executive of B&B with immediate effect due to ill health, and the bank’s pre-tax figures for the first four months of this year fell from a £107 million profit to a loss of £8 million.
–The Times, 02 June 2008

See: Credit Crisis Timeline for a full list of writedowns and capital raising by institution and a timeline of the credit crunch.

See also: Other posts under the label ‘UK.’