B&B Weakened by 'Appalling' First-Half Results

By Peter Wakeford
Published on 29 Aug 2008
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B&B Weakened by 'Appalling' First-Half Results

The bank has endured a torrid 2008 so far, and has now admitted to suffering large losses over the January-June period.

Bradford & Bingley (B&B) has declared losses of £26.7 million for the first half of 2008.

The bank, one of the firms worst-hit by the credit crunch across the UK financial sector, also said that bad debt charges on its mortgage lending have grown from just £5.3 million last year to £74.6 million.

Profits for B&B over January-June 2007, prior to the onset of the financial crisis, stood at £180.4 million. Since then, the lender's balance sheet has been hammered by declines in the property market - with house prices currently around ten percent down on what they were a year ago.

In addition, the bank has faced the loss of its chief executive and endured the collapse of the attempted sale of a 22 percent stake in the firm to a US private equity group. A £400 million sale of new shares also required three separate attempts to complete.

Speaking to the Independent, Collins Stewart banking analyst Alex Potter termed the results "little short of appalling". Future earnings forecasts also remain "very weak" for the bank, he added.

"In the light of continuing weakness in the housing market and the wider economy, we continue to expect arrears and repossessions to increase for the remainder of the year, although we will be putting further resources into tackling the problem," the bank said in a statement.

B&B chairman Rod Kent added that the first months of 2008 "have, to say the least, been very challenging".

The bank's shares declined a further one percent today on the profits news - and now stand 87 percent lower in value than they did 12 months ago.

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