Bradford & Bingley

Bradford & Bingley plc was a British bank with headquarters in the West Yorkshire town of Bingley.The bank was formed in December 2000 by demutualisation of the Bradford & Bingley Building Society following a vote of the building society's members, who swapped their nominal share of the building society for at least 250 shares of the newly formed bank.In 2008, partly due to the credit crunch, the bank was nationalised and in effect split into two parts; the mortgage book and investment portfolios remained with the now publicly owned Bradford & Bingley plc, and the deposits and branch network (and a licence to use the B&B name for those aspects) was sold to Abbey National, itself owned by the Spanish Santander Group. The branch network was rebranded Santander on 11 January 2010 and the Bradford & Bingley name now solely relates to the nationalised section of the bank.HistoryBradford & Bingley Building Society was formed in 1964 as a result of the merger of the Bradford Equitable Building Society and the Bingley Permanent Building Society, both of which were established in 1851.In May 1997 the Society bought Mortgage Express from Lloyds TSB for £64 million.In December 2000 the Society demutualised and floated on the London Stock Exchange (using the symbol BB.) with former members of the Society each receiving a minimum of 250 shares worth £567.50 at the time, and savers with more savings receiving more shares worth up to £5,000 each.

Tags: Financial Service