There was news last week that Lloyds Banking Group was ordered by the European Commission to sell the branches. The story is as follows:
The Co-op is close to scooping 632 branches from Lloyds Banking Group for a knockdown £1bn price tag - less than original market estimates.
The board of the mutual will meet next week and is expected to approve a plan to make staged payments to Lloyds over a number of years that would depend on performance.
When Lloyds, which is 40pc owned by the government, put the branches up for sale more than a year ago, it was expected to go for closer to £1.5bn.
The bank was ordered by the European Commission to sell the branches by November 2013 in order to comply with state aid rules after it accepted a £21bn government bailout.
Over the past 12 months bank shares have slipped, and the only other bidder for the branches, a cash shell called NBNK, is being wound up after Co-op and Lloyds entered exclusive talks for the second time last month.
The Lloyds package contains five million customers, which would triple the size of the Co-op's banking arm.
Due to the size of the deal the FSA had looked at regulating the whole of the Co-op, which contains a range of businesses from supermarkets to funeral parlours. However, it is understood to be moving towards just overseeing the banking operations.
My initial thoughts:
1. Not Nice
2. I think European Commission have no rights to sell bank branches even bank is 40% owned by the government.
3. This deal will be very muddy in near future.