The Co-operative Bank and Sainsbury’s Bank have scrapped talks about buying the supermarket-owned lender’s £650m mortgage portfolio after failing to agree on a price.
An auction process, run by professional services firm Deloitte, has been underway for some time, but has broken down over a valuation of the home loans, says Sky News.
It is unclear whether Sainsbury’s Bank is in talks with another party about a sale, or has ended the process.
Digital lender Starling Bank had also expressed an interest in the portfolio, but withdrew from the auction months ago, the news outlet adds.
Last week, the Co-operative Bank saw its annual profit jump more than fourfold to £132.6m, driven by growth in its mortgage pipeline and higher interest charges.
The lender said the home loans pipeline rose by 42% to around £1.7bn from a year ago, as the group “remains heavily reliant on interest income from its mortgage portfolio”.
Last year, Co-operative Bank also made a failed attempt to buy TSB from Spanish lender owner Banco Sabadell, who rejected its £1.1bn bid.
The bank was part of the wider Co-Operative Group, which nearly collapsed in 2013 after a £1.5bn black hole was revealed in the lender’s accounts. The bank severed final links with its former parent in 2017.
