Private equity firm Apollo Global Management has reportedly dropped plans to acquire UK-based lender Metro Bank.
The US-based firm reached out to the lender for a potential acquisition several weeks ago, Bloomberg has reported citing people familiar with the matter.
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Recently, Apollo decided to call off the talks becoming the second buyout firm to do so.
Last month, American private equity firm Carlyle decided to end talks to acquire a mid-sized lender.
The talks fell apart just two weeks after Metro Bank revealed that it was in talks with Carlyle regarding a potential takeover.
Metro Bank was established in 2010 to challenge the UK’s high street lenders but failed to do so due to its misreporting scandal in 2019.
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By GlobalDataAt its peak in 2018, the lender had a market valuation of nearly $4.8bn.
Metro Bank has been struggling to make profits, which has brought its valuation to about £173m, making it a potential target for a buyout.
Recently, Legal & General sold its stake in Metro Bank stating that it was “part of an ongoing wider reduction of a large basket of stocks across index funds”.
Meanwhile, in October this year Co-operative Bank made an offer to acquire Banco de Sabadell’s UK subsidiary TSB Bank.
The board of Spanish lender rejected Co-operative Bank’s offer. As per Sky News’ report, Co-operative Bank was willing to pay over £1bn for Sabadell’s UK subsidiary.
