Another Northern Rock?

Probably not but the travails of Bradford and Bingley are worth following closely. Britain’s eight biggest bank and the largest player in the increasingly fragile buy-to-let market is under severe pressure following yet another profits warning, the early departure of its CEO and the announcement of the sale of 23% of their equity to a private equity investor Texas Pacific Group. The BBC web site will be carrying plenty on this story over the coming days. Declan Curry has been reporting on this as the news came through and Robert Peston continues to break the stories ahead of the rest of the pack with his superb blog - he writes:

“A regulator also told me that, unlike Northern Rock last September, B&B’s is not suffering from a shortage of liquid funds that would imperil its future. He added that its balance sheet was not particularly weak, even without the injection of new capital.”

Bradford and Bingley’s exposed position in the buy to let market seems to be one of its key weaknesses at the moment. But the regulators will be in there swarming like wasps to make sure that the financial stavbility of the bank is better than when they failed in their regulatory duty with Northern Rock. This is little comfort for B&B shareholders asked to stump up for a rights issue and who have seen the price of B&B shares collapse since the middle of last year.

Unit 3 Micro: Game Theory and Business Economics [21 May 2012]
Unit 2 Macro: The Current Account of the Balance of Payments [20 May 2012]
Unit 2 Macro: The Importance of Productivity [20 May 2012]
Unit 2 Macro: Revision Notes on Supply-side Policies [10 May 2012]
Unit 2 Macro: Model answer for revision data question [9 May 2012]
Robert Schiller - Finance and the Good Society [1 May 2012]
Tullow Oil and African Development [25 Apr 2012]
Unit 3 Micro: Quiz on Business Costs and Profits [11 Apr 2012]
Unit 3 Micro: Revision on Entry Barriers [10 Apr 2012]
Unit 3 Micro: Revision on Business Objectives and Pricing [8 Apr 2012]
Unit 3 Micro: Revision on Monopoly Price and Output [6 Apr 2012]
Unit 3 Micro: Monopoly and Economic Welfare [6 Apr 2012]
Unit 3 Micro: Revision on Scale Economies and MES [5 Apr 2012]
Unit 1 Micro: Revision on Producer Subsidies [2 Apr 2012]
Unit 1 Micro: Revision on Producer Cartels [31 Mar 2012]
Unit 2 Macro: Revision on Capital Investment [30 Mar 2012]
Unit 3 Micro: EU Imposes Further Price Cap on Mobile Phone Companies [29 Mar 2012]
Beyond the Bike - Gold Digging in Sudan [28 Mar 2012]
Unit 4 Macro: Evaluating 3 Years of Quantitative Easing [27 Mar 2012]
Adapt or Die - Lord Bilimoria and the Cobra Story [4 Mar 2012]
Unit 4 Macro: Sovereign Wealth Funds [4 Mar 2012]
Unit 1 Micro: Breaking Down the Cost of Gas [4 Mar 2012]
Unit 3 Micro: Volkswagen targets growth markets [25 Feb 2012]
Unit 1 Micro: The Facebook Floatation [3 Feb 2012]
Unit 4 Macro: Focus on India - Comparative Advantage [27 Jan 2012]
Economics at the Movies - Foods that Make Billions [15 Jan 2012]
Unit 2 Macro: Factors Driving Business Investment [10 Jan 2012]
Unit 4 Macro: Natural Disasters and their Economic Impact [7 Jan 2012]
Unit 3 Micro: Oligopoly and Duopoly in Bus Markets [20 Dec 2011]
Unit 3 Micro: Brand Loyalty in Mobile Phones [27 Nov 2011]
AS Macro: The State of British Business [13 Nov 2011]
Unit 3 Micro: Unilever hit by rising costs [6 Nov 2011]
Unit 1 Micro: Google Maps to Charge for Usage [31 Oct 2011]
Unit 2 Macro: Income and Wealth in the UK [12 Sep 2011]
Unit 4 Macro: Dangers of High Inflation [11 Jul 2011]
AS Macro Key Term: Deflation [24 May 2011]
AS Macro Key Term: Recession [23 May 2011]
A2 Micro: Entry Barriers in Markets [19 May 2011]
A2 Micro: The Importance of Profit [19 May 2011]
A2 Micro: Consequences of Price Discrimination [19 May 2011]
Unit 3 Micro: Perfect Competition [19 May 2011]
A2 Micro: Competition and Efficiency [19 May 2011]
A2 Micro: Innovation and Economic Policies [18 May 2011]
A2 Micro: Moving Away from Profit Max [18 May 2011]
A2 Micro: Economies of Scope [18 May 2011]
AS and A2 Macro Revision: Keynesian Economics [28 Apr 2011]
A2 Micro: Changes in Costs and Profits [23 Apr 2011]
Rise in investment could kick start recovery [18 Apr 2011]
Key AS Micro Terms: Competition and Monopoly [17 Apr 2011]
Key AS Micro Terms: Costs and Profits [16 Apr 2011]
Smartphones and Creative Destruction [16 Apr 2011]
UK Minimum Wage rises by 2.5% in October 2011 [8 Apr 2011]
AS Macro Key Term: Gross National Income (GNI) [7 Apr 2011]
AS Macro Revision: Investment Spending [12 Mar 2011]
Patent Box or Innovation Box as Innovation Stimulant? [2 Mar 2011]
Shared Value and the Limitations of CSR [12 Feb 2011]
Tesco - Time to start a price war! [19 Jan 2011]
What might dominate the headlines in 2011? [16 Jan 2011]
Economics Q&A: How might rising food prices affect food retailers and manufacturers in the UK? [16 Jan 2011]
Heinz Means Strikes [29 Dec 2010]
Pricing tricks and behavioural economics [12 Dec 2010]
Growth and Strategy at Domino’s Pizza [27 Nov 2010]
A2 Micro: Monopoly Price and Output [28 Oct 2010]
Asia Rising - Thai Car Exports Speeds Up Growth [27 Oct 2010]
The Business Objectives of Mark Zuckerberg [25 Oct 2010]
Departing from pure profit maximisation [14 Oct 2010]
Creative products lead the world and boost UK trade [5 Oct 2010]
Student View: Takeovers and Mergers and Shareholder Value [27 Sep 2010]
Currencies in the News - Two Videos [16 Sep 2010]
Stephanie Flanders and Robert Peston on the government spending review [4 Sep 2010]
Potash - a battle for grey dust that has become gold dust [26 Aug 2010]
Fiscal Austerity - Businesses in the Firing Line [10 Aug 2010]
Cocoa Economics [30 Jul 2010]
Unit 2 Macro: How can supply-side policies help in a recession? [6 Jun 2010]
Australia divided on a mining super-tax [4 Jun 2010]
AS Macro Revision: Cyclical unemployment [2 Jun 2010]
Fosters Demerger - Beer and Wine rarely mix! [26 May 2010]
Unit 3 Micro: Efficiency and Price Intervention in Markets [21 May 2010]
Profit seeking paradoxes in an oblique world [15 May 2010]
Business profits and the recession [1 May 2010]
A2 Economics Revision - From Budget surplus to deficit [1 May 2010]
Issues and Prospects for the UK Economy in 2010 [25 Apr 2010]
Robert Peston - On the Money [5 Apr 2010]
Taxing time for pubs [27 Nov 2009]
Warning - Businesses at Risk from Economic Recovery [26 Oct 2009]
Kindlenomics [11 Oct 2009]
The UK Economy - a Long Run Perspective [7 Oct 2009]
Explaining Creative Destruction [4 Oct 2009]
A2 Micro Multiple Choice Quiz [29 Sep 2009]
Marx and the labour theory of value [7 Sep 2009]
Keynes and the Multiplier Effect [3 Sep 2009]
Leading Questions with Robert Peston [9 Aug 2009]
Smart Phones - Smart Money for Apple and RIM [25 Jul 2009]
Economics Snapshot - Tesco and Competition [21 Jul 2009]
CAPEX under pressure as spare capacity grows [4 Jul 2009]
Server demand dips as downturn bytes [1 Jun 2009]
Revision - Price Discrimination (presentation) [26 May 2009]
Revision - External Shocks [24 May 2009]
Business decisions drive the cycle - one year on [24 May 2009]
Revision: Market Structure, Conduct and Performance [22 May 2009]

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