RBS is Virgins main target

By Lawrie Holmes 959PM GMT twenty March 2010

The employing of Greenhill, to work to one side Virgin"s unchanging confidant Quayle Munro, confirms Virgin"s seductiveness in being deliberate a critical contender for the 320 branches of the bank, thought to have a book worth of up to �2 billion.

Virgin is approaching to line up to one side Clydesdale Bank-owner National Australia Bank, that is being suggested by Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley and Spanish hulk Santander, owners of Abbey and Alliance & Leicester, that is being suggested by Credit Suisse and Lazard. BBVA, an additional heading Spanish bank, is additionally thought to be meddlesome in camp a initial turn bid for the resources and is accepted to have hired Citi for the role.

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RBS"s deadline will lift expectations the routine is relocating brazen after unsatisfactory in new weeks over concerns the network is contingent on puncture appropriation from the Bank of England. The loans, piece of the package of assist lengthened to RBS underneath the Special Liquidity Scheme, will have to be transposed by the new customer inside of weeks of receiving control. Virgin"s goal to buy the commercial operation notwithstanding the genocide progressing this month of Sir Brian Pitman, non-executive authority of the group, will additionally be a progress to the Government"s settled bulletin of mending foe in banking. This would have been undermined if usually large banks had taken piece in the auction.

Virgin is creation the proceed for the RBS resources the main priority, forward of the settled goal of apropos a vital online sell bank that it says will hurl out products by the summer. It has additionally put the office of RBS resources forward of appropriation Northern Rock"s "good bank", that is not approaching to be sole until after the ubiquitous election.

Virgin is thought to be seeking at series of financing options for appropriation the RBS resources and Northern Rock and has not ruled out operative with a accumulation of investors. It is not approaching to find a new non-executive authority for an additional month or two, contend sources.