UK-based high street lender The Co-operative Bank (Co-op Bank) has ended sale talks with US-based private equity firm Cerberus.
This development comes one month after Cerberus held preliminary discussions to acquire the struggling Co-op Bank.
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Last month, the Co-op Bank said that it received a non-binding offer from a “financial sponsor with knowledge and experience of investing in European financial services businesses regarding the possibility of a sale of the bank and/or the holding company.”
Cerberus was in talks with the board and shareholders of the Manchester-based bank for a potential deal.
The majority shareholders of the bank have now confirmed that they have terminated these discussions.
Co-op Bank did not give the reason which led to its latest decision, however, it added that it is committed to its existing five-year turnaround strategy.
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By GlobalDataCo-op Bank CEO Nick Slape said: “Our priority is to support our personal and small business customers through the current period of economic uncertainty.
“We are making good progress as we deliver our strategy, having achieved some important milestones during 2020, and we are focused on returning to profitability and building a strong and successful Co-operative Bank.”
Since 2013, Co-op Bank has been grappling with bad loans worth £1.5bn (nearly $2bn) following the acquisition of Britannia Building Society in 2009.
In 2017, the lender agreed to a £700m ($930m) bailout agreement with the US hedge fund owners BlueMountain Capital, GoldenTree Asset Management, and Silver Point Capital.
In 2018, the lender also approached the UK banking giant Barclays for a merger. However, the discussions did not move beyond the exploratory stage.
In the UK, the Co-op bank has onboarded as many as 3.3 million personal banking customers.
Last month, Spanish lenders Banco Sabadell and BBVA also terminated their merger negotiations as they could not reach an agreement over price.
