FACTBOX-Key facts about UK bank Bradford & Bingley
Sept 28 (Reuters) - Britain's government is leading talks on a rescue of troubled mortgage lender Bradford & Bingley BB.L, which is expected to result in it being nationalised.
A statement on its future will be made on Sunday or early Monday. [ID:LS267057]
Following are key facts about Bradford & Bingley (B&B):
* A former building society formed in 1964 from the merger of the Bradford Equitable Building Society and the Bingley Building Society. Both those societies were established in 1851 to support people of northern English mill towns.
* B&B demutualised in July 2000 and listed on the stock exchange in December that year. Some 40 percent of the bank's shares are still held by retail investors.
* In recent years, B&B has transformed itself into a specialist mortgage bank and is Britain's largest buy-to-let lender, providing loans to landlords and property investors. It also provides "self-cert" mortgages, or loans for the self-employed and those with more than one job, and a "lifetime" mortgage, allowing borrowers to release the equity they have built up in their main residence.
* It has 197 branches and 140 branch-type agencies.
* The bank has around 2 million mortgage customers and 1 million savings customers. It has telephone and online channels and B&B products are also sold through brokers and intermediaries under the Mortgage Express brand.
* It has about 3,200 employees.
* Its headquarters are in Bingley, West Yorkshire.
* B&B has just under 1 million shareholders.
* The bowler hat in the bank's logo is worn by a young lady in a bright green suit in its latest advertising campaign.
* At its peak in March 2006, B&B was worth 3.3 billion pounds. The shares have tumbled 93 percent this year and closed on Friday at 20 pence each, valuing the lender at under 300 million pounds.
* The bank's problems intensified in May, when it announced plans for a 300 million pound emergency rights issue, a month after denying it had any plans to do so. B&B said at the time that it had waited for markets to stabilise before going ahead with the deeply discounted issue.
* It raised 400 million pounds from a rights issue in August to shore up its capital. But the rights issue was a flop after its shares fell, and UK banks HSBC (HSBA.L), Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS.L), Barclays (BARC.L), Lloyds TSB (LLOY.L) and HBOS HBOS.L and Spain's Santander (SAN.MC) were left owning over a fifth of its shares after stepping in to help.
* Its chief executive is Richard Pym, 58, former CEO of Alliance & Leicester ALLL.L. Pym took the helm in August, moving in after Steven Crawshaw stepped down from the post in June due to ill-health.
* Rod Kent, 60, has been chairman since 2002. He was previously chairman of Close Brothers (CBRO.L).
* B&B sank to a loss of 27 million pounds in the first six months of 2008, hit by 155 million pounds in writedowns and investment losses and a rise in bad debts. Its 2007 profit fell to 126 million pounds from 247 million in 2006, after it took a 94 million pound writedown last year.
* The bank last week announced plans to cut 370 jobs, mostly by closing a mortgage processing centre, and said it had sold all its problematic mortgage-related derivatives. A day earlier it renegotiated a deal with finance firm GMAC-RFC to end a deal early whereby B&B would buy loans originated by GMAC. But B&B still has to buy 500 million pounds of loans in the fourth quarter and up to 250 million pounds more in the first quarter of 2009. The moves were part of a strategic overhaul by Pym. Sources: Thomson Reuters; company; www.bbg.co.uk; (Compiled by Steve Slater; Editing by Paul Bolding)
