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Bank back in mutual ownership

24 May 2024

The Co-operative Bank and Coventry Building Society have announced they had completed a deal for the bank to be acquired by the society.

Bob Dench, chair of the bank said:

“This transaction sees The Co-operative Bank returning to mutuality. I am very proud of all those who have worked so hard over so many years to rebuild the Bank. I am sure the Coventry Building Society will prove to be a very good home for us.”

The Co-op Bank has new entered 'exclusive' merger talks with Coventry Building Society. This is now officially confirmed.

Starting with the Financial Times, which included a quote from the Customer Union, a number of media outlets have now picked up on the story.

https://www.ft.com/content/cee13985-7dad-4710-b9a2-49f0e9258134 (Paywall)

We commented to the FT:

"The Customer Union for Ethical Banking, the independent union for Co-op’s customers, said a successful deal would “align perfectly with our dual goals: preserving the bank’s world-leading ethical standards and steering it back towards some form of mutual or co-operative ownership.”

28 April 2021

JC Flowers and Bain Capital Credit have agreed to buy BlueMountain Capital’s share in the Co-op Bank. The acquisition remains subject to regulatory approval.

Nick Slape, Chief Executive Officer of the Co-operative Bank, commented:

We asked members of the Customer Union (and Save Our Bank supporters) to send in questions that they'd like us to ask the Co-operative Bank at our regular meeting with them in September 2020.

We assembled - and in some cases amalgamated - a list of questions from members before presenting them to the bank for initial discussion. The bank then went away to consider a more detailed response, and there was a further dialogue. It's taken a while for us to collate the responses and write this up. We'll try and turn this round more quickly in future.

The issues covered are listed below. Click on a subject for details of our question and the bank’s responses.

January 2021

The Co-operative Bank has announced that it has renewed its support for The Hive – a programme delivered by Co-operatives UK to support new co‑operative start-ups, help grow existing co‑ops and help business convert to co-operative or community ownership.

The Hive was launched in 2016, and has already received £1.3 million in funding from the bank. This has helped over 1,000 co-operatives and groups with support including direct business advice, workshops, training and mentoring.

The Co-operative Bank informed us (on Monday 21 December 2020), that the discussions around a potential bid for the bank have ended.

This brings to an end the speculation around a bid, reported by Sky News to be from Cerberus Asset Management, later picked up by The Guardian.