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’[Something for the weekend] Life’s a beach (or not)
Life’s a beach (or not)
Ah, the holiday season. Dreams of surf, sea, sand – and soggy share prices, or so it must seem to the bewildered shareholders in Thomas Cook. The travel agent’s “amendment to bank facilities”
Abbey Alliance & Bungle Bank Plc
Why is Banco Santander looking to float 20 per cent of its UK business at a much reduced valuation of £16bn?
The answer is because it needs to, reckons Andrew Lim of Matrix:
Our own view is that Santander needs to do this deal to improve Basel III capital ratios relative to European peers.
Guest post: what colour is your credit event?
Markit credit analyst Lisa Pollack explores the intricacies of CDS credit events
Before the “Big Bang” in the credit default swap (CDS) market in the spring of 2009, if you thought a credit event had occurred,
[Darling: Budget Highlights 2010] Reforming financial services — some details
FT Alphaville finally got its hands on a nice, fat hard-copy of the UK’s 2010 Budget on Wednesday, freshly couriered over from Westminster.
We were intrigued by this section of the Budget Report, on ‘reforming financial services’ (emphasis in the original):
Abbey, Bungle & Leicester
Why is Santander considering a flotation of its operations in the UK? According to the spin in the weekend press, it is so that the Spanish bank can buy the 318-strong branch network that RBS is being forced to sell as a condition of the state aid it has received.
Santander’s debt rebranding
On Monday, Santander said it was buying back as much as €2.5bn in debt, including hybrid bonds from Abbey and Alliance & Leicester, the British banks it bought in 2004 and 2008, respectively.
That same day,
Confirmation: Crock is crock
No one can really say they didn’t see this coming.
After news earlier this month that Northern Rock is still loss-making, the nationalised lender declared on Tuesday:
In this context,
CDS report: Indices rebound after US jobless claims tumble
This CDS report was written by Markit’s Gavan Nolan
Credit indices rebounded today following Alcoa’s better than expected results and a positive surprise from US jobless claims figures. The Markit iTraxx Europe index closed at 120.5,
UK’s B&B set to miss coupon payments
Bradford & Bingley, the UK mortgage lender nationalised last year, said it will miss coupon payments on some of its perpetual subordinated bonds and subordinated notes on their next date of payment – all due in June or July.
Bradford & Bingley, the delinquent bank
How sneaky is this?
Bradford & Bingley, the nationalised mortgage bank, quietly issued three statements after the market had closed on Tuesday, informing holders of three classes of notes that they would not now be getting their next due interest payment.
Pension boost for B&B ex-chief
Steven Crawshaw, the former chief executive of Bradford & Bingley, is receiving a pension of £105,318 a year, it emerged on Monday. Crawshaw, 47, was chief executive of B&B for four years during which he drove B&B further into specialist mortgages.
A boardroom break-out at Bungle
What’s this? News of boardroom upheaval at a state-funded bank, being slipped out at 17.24pm on a Friday through the regulatory news service.
How shabby.
The Board of Bradford & Bingley plc announces that today four non executive directors,
Bradford & Bingley loan book concerns
Bradford & Bingley, the UK buy-to-let mortgage lender nationalised five weeks ago, has seen a rise in arrears in its mortgage book triggering fears the UK taxpayer could be exposed to potential losses.
Profits goal for UK public bank stake
The taxpayer’s multi-billion pound stake in the British banking industry is to be managed by a new “arm’s length” company, whose aim is to ensure that nationalisation yields a profit. Sir Philip Hampton,
Northern Rock reveals B&B talks
Northern Rock has explored plans to take on the loan book of Bradford & Bingley, as the first British victim of the credit crunch, which was nationalised in February, looks to consolidate the business of the government-owned banks.
UK building societies angry at B&B liabilities
Britain’s biggest banks will be liable for any unexpected losses from Monday’s nationalisation of Bradford & Bingley, after they decided this would be better than taking the risk of bailing out the embattled mortgage lender themselves.
HM Bradford & Bingley
The statement:
Bradford & Bingley plc
* Today, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, announced that by order under the Banking (Special Provisions) Act 2008, Bradford & Bingley’s UK and Isle of Man retail deposit business along with its branch network has been transferred to Abbey National plc.
UK set to nationalise B&B
The UK government was preparing Sunday night to nationalise Bradford & Bingley after finalising a deal with Spanish bank Santander, which will buy the stricken UK mortgage lender’s £21bn deposit book and branch network for about £600m.
Bradford & Bingley: The big issue
You could call it the school of hard knocks, says Lex. The UK government learnt from the Northern Rock crisis what to avoid. As Bradford & Bingley’s fate as an independent company was sealed this weekend,
Bradford & Bingley cuts jobs as fears grow
Shares in Bradford & Bingley slid further on Thursday after a decision by the embattled UK mortgage lender to cut 370 jobs and take further writedowns of credit assets triggered speculation it was cleaning up its business for a possible sale.
B&B averts £1bn mortgage burden
Bradford & Bingley, the troubled UK mortgage lender, on Tuesday night struck a deal to avoid taking an additional £1bn in mortgages on to its balance sheet after the beleaguered lender renegotiated an agreement with GMAC-RFC,
Santander ‘may step in’ to aid B&B
Santander, the Spanish bank that owns Abbey, may be prepared to play a role in contingency plans with other banks if Bradford & Bingley, the troubled UK mortgage lender, runs into difficulty. The Spanish group,
Bye, bye Bradford & Bingley?
We don’t pose the question with venom. We just note the weekend’s news and the muscular, get-things-done attitude of the authorities, who will not want to leave this one festering.
Pretty much everyone seems to agree that in an independent,
FSA seeks Bradford & Bingley ‘white knights’
The UK’s financial regulator is thought to have sounded out potential “white knights” for Bradford & Bingley as part of its contingency planning in the event that Britain’s biggest buy-to-let lender is buffeted by further market turmoil.
Bungle bank teeters on edge of junk status
From Moody’s:
London, 16 September 2008 — Moody’s Investors Service has today downgraded the long-term bank deposit and the senior unsecured debt ratings of Bradford & Bingley plc (Bradford & Bingley) to Baa3 from Baa1.
Bumbling along…
The sad fact about Bradford & Bingley is that no one cares much whether its survives as an independent entity. Its main use, in investment terms, is as a producer of data which can be applied to other larger institutions.
Snap news
The latest on Friday,
- Bradford & Bingley announces £26.7m loss – interim results.
- SVG partners reports H1 assets per share down 12.3% – interim results.
- BAE systems extends offer period for Detica shares- statement.
B&B’s stick
At least the underwriters for HBOS managed to sell on much of the unwanted stock.
For Bradford & Bingley’s (twice-restructured) rights, there’s no such luck.
Filed with the RNS this morning:
The