The British financial market regulator, the Financial Services Authority (FSA), is conducting secret negotiations to prepare the ground for the acquisition of the mortgage lender Bradford & Bingley, reported the London weekly The Sunday Telegraph.
According to the weekly’s report, the regulator is negotiating with the Spanish banking group Santander, which has already acquired two British banks, Abbey in 2004 and is soon set to complete the acquisition of Alliance & Leicester. Negotiations are also taking place with the Dutch group ING and National Australia Bank to assess interest in Bradford & Bingley. Unnamed sources close to the Santander group told the newspaper that it is unlikely the Spanish group is interested in the troubled British mortgage lender, which has been hit by the international credit crisis. Bradford & Bingley announced last month that it suffered a net loss of £17.2 million in the first half of 2008, attributing this to "turbulence in the banking and real estate sector." In early August, it revealed that its shareholders had agreed to purchase just under 28 percent of the share buyback options issued to raise £400 million. (H)
