CO-OP BANK PUTS ITSELF UP FOR SALE

Co-op Bank’s ethical culture at stake as problems come to head.

Looming sale after series of setbacks raises questions on what will become of lender.

Five years ago, the Co-operative Bank was riding high. Its then chief executive Barry Tootell had just reported a decent annual profit and was set to unveil a politically celebrated deal to double in size by acquiring TSB from Lloyds Banking Group.

Since then, the ethically focused UK lender, which this week put itself up for sale, has suffered a giddy fall from grace, hit by almost every imaginable scandal. The TSB deal collapsed in 2013 after the Co-op Bank admitted there was a £1.5bn hole in its accounts — triggered by large losses on loans from its disastrous merger with the Britannia Building Society. Mr Tootell, who left shortly after, has since been fined and banned from both the accounting and banking industries.

Deepening the crisis, Paul Flowers, the Co-op Bank’s clergyman-turned-chairman, was dubbed the “Crystal Methodist” and suspended by both his church and the Labour party after a tabloid sting exposed him for buying cocaine and methamphetamine.

https://www.ft.com/content/1be7be0a-f3bc-11e6-95ee-f14e55513608

Can't see there being a rush of buyers......