Northern Rock narrows loss August 3, 2011 Nationalised lender Northern Rock posted a first-half loss of £78.8m and said it continues to work on plans for an eventual sale of the company back to the private sector. Last year it made a first-half loss of £140m, and the company said it now expects to start trading profitably some time in the second [...]
Bids roll in for the Rock July 28, 2011 THE government received at least two bids for Northern Rock yesterday, six weeks after it kicked off the privatisation of the lender bailed out during the financial crisis. Virgin Money and private equity firm JC Flowers are both understood to have made indicative offers for the Northern Rock “good bank” that is on sale, with [...]
Virgin and Resolution ‘circle Northern Rock’ July 28, 2011 Businessmen Richard Branson and Clive Cowdery, founder of insurance takeover specialist Resolution, are expected to be among the bidders for nationalised bank Northern Rock, people familiar with the matter said. Branson’s Virgin Money and Cowdery’s Resolution were likely to make first-round expressions of interest in Northern Rock this week to UK Financial Investments, the organisation [...]
Yorkshire Building Society buys Egg assets from Citi July 25, 2011 BRITISH mortgage lender Yorkshire Building Society is to buy the mortgage and savings business of Egg Banking from US bank Citigroup, as Citi continues to sell non-core assets after its bailout during the credit crisis. Yorkshire, owned by its customers, said the Egg businesses it was acquiring comprised of a £2.5bn savings book and a [...]
Yorkshire to buy Egg units from Citi July 25, 2011 Mortgage lender Yorkshire Building Society is to buy the mortgage and savings business of Egg Banking from American bank Citigroup, as Citi continues to sell non-core assets after its bailout during the credit crisis. Yorkshire, owned by its customers, said the Egg businesses it was acquiring comprised of a £2.5bn savings book and a 430 [...]
Public sector borrowing at £14bn in June July 21, 2011 RISING government spending saw public borrowing hit £14bn last month, official figures unveiled yesterday showed. Public sector net borrowing (PSNB) was up £300m from the same time last year, and “about £1.5bn above market expectations”, according to the Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR). Central government spending was £51.96bn in June – up from £49.54bn in [...]
Wells Fargo to pay $85m fine July 20, 2011 Wells Fargo & Co, the largest mortgage lender in the US, has agreed to pay a $85m (£52.6m) civil penalty to the Federal Reserve Board and will compensate borrowers who were allegedly steered into more costly subprime loans with higher interest rates during the housing boom. The fine is the largest ever imposed by the [...]
Why the City ought to be keeping a close eye on EU’s fight to fix Greece July 20, 2011 It is not going to be a pretty sight today in Justus Lipsius building in Brussels. At the crisis summit, Europe’s leaders will do something they previously reassured their taxpayers was a legal impossibility – bail out failed states in the Eurozone. Or at least, they will try to do this. Although they all agree [...]
Mortgage lending on the increase July 20, 2011 GROSS mortgage lending picked up strongly in June, according to figures released yesterday. Lending came in at £12.6bn, up 16 per cent from the £10.8bn lent in May. Yet the figure was still nearly three per cent lower than at the same time last year, showing that the UK’s sluggish housing market is not out [...]
Mortgage lending drops July 20, 2011 Gross mortgage lending fell three per cent on the year in June but was 16 per cent up on the month, the Council of Mortgage Lenders (CML) said. The CML said gross mortgage lending totalled £12.6bn in June, the highest monthly total in almost a year. It said lending in the first half of this [...]