Metro Bank sobers up and attracts a suitor | Nils Pratley
Some departures from the shrinking London stock market hurt more than others.It is doubtful that Metro Bank, if it’s about to fall to an approach from a London private equity firm, will be mourned by those shareholders on the wrong end of the wild ride for the shares from £20 at listing in 2016, to £40 two years later, to a plunge and painful recapitalisation at just 30p in 2023.In the overhyped early years, Metro said it was going to revolutionise high street banking via the novel strategy of opening expensive branches while the fuddy-duddy old guard were closing them.The party ended in an arduous tale of an accounting blunder, run-ins with regulators and a need for more capital, factors that inevitably weighed more heavily than the bank’s gimmicks such as giving free dog biscuits to the customers’ canines.But – surprise, surprise – Metro these days is not an enfeebled lender waiting to be put out of its misery.
In recapitalised and less flashy form for the last couple of years, it has been making quiet progress from its lowered horizons.The branches have been kept, but costs have been taken out, most of the loan-book has been redirected towards small businesses and the number of accounts has grown.Profits appeared again at the end of last year.If you caught the bottom for the shares in 2023’s rescue deal, as Colombian billionaire Jaime Gilinski Bacal did by topping up his stake to 53%, you did well.Even before potential takeover interest from Pollen Street Capital, as reported by Sky News at the weekend, the shares had improved to 112p.
It is why Metro doesn’t necessarily need to throw itself into the arms of Pollen Street at any price.The would-be bidder’s reported interest is probably motivated by thoughts of a second deal to combine Metro and Shawbrook, the business-focused lender that Pollen Street owns with fellow private equity outfit BC Partners.It’s true that a combination would have financial logic on its side.Metro would bring cheap funding from a sticky deposit base of current accounts; Shawbrook has a faster-growing loan book across buy-to-let mortgages, commercial property and small businesses.“The value for Shawbrook in maintaining asset growth momentum at the same time as reducing deposit costs is potentially significant,” argue analysts at KBW.
As they also say, a deal hinges on two factors.First, whether Metro’s management and shareholders – critically, Gilinski – want to head to the exit at a point when the reinvention of their bank is supposed to have several more laps to run.Second, the price Pollen Street would be prepared to offer.But the market clearly expects a deal: Metro’s shares rose 18% to 133p, giving a £890m valuation.It makes you wonder what might have been if Metro, version one, hadn’t attempted an all-conquering retail strategy that took it to the brink of collapse and a near-quadrupling of the share count.
Version two – sober, better capitalised and with small businesses as the target for lending – has been vastly better,
Adult gaming centres failing to help problem gamblers self-exclude
Flaws in a scheme meant to help gamblers bar themselves from 24-hour slot machine shops have been described by the industry regulator as “very concerning”, following revelations in a BBC documentary.The Guardian has previously revealed how gambling operators are exploiting favourable planning and licensing laws to flood UK high streets with “adult gaming centres” (AGCs), which are disproportionately concentrated in the poorest areas.The shops must offer self-exclusion schemes to customers who fear they have a problem with slot machines, which are consistently linked with higher rates of addiction than products such as sports betting.But a documentary by BBC File on 4 Investigates, due to be broadcast on Tuesday evening, found that in one UK city 13 out of 14 venues failed to implement the scheme properly.An undercover reporter for the programme signed up to exclude himself from all AGCs within a 40km radius of central Portsmouth
Stress blamed for high number of NHS call handlers quitting
NHS call handlers are quitting amid burnout at dealing with 999 calls about suicides, stabbings and shootings and the long delays before ambulances reach patients.The pressure is so intense that 27% of control room staff in ambulance services across Britain have left their jobs over the last three years, NHS figures show.Many feel overwhelmed by the demands of their roles, unsupported by their employers and powerless to help patients who are facing life-or-death emergencies, according to a report by Unison, with some resigning within a year of starting the role.Call handlers get so stressed that they took an average of 33 sick days a year each between 2021/22 and 2024/25, data obtained by the union also showed. That is far higher than the average four days taken off sick by workers in the UK overall
Grooming gangs in UK thrived in ‘culture of ignorance’, Casey report says
A culture of “blindness, ignorance and prejudice” led to repeated failures over decades to properly investigate cases in which children were abused by grooming gangs, a report has said.As the government announced a public inquiry into the scandal, Louise Casey said for too long the authorities had shied away from the ethnicity of the people involved, adding it was “not racist to examine the ethnicity of the offenders”.Lady Casey said she found evidence of “over-representation” of Asian and Pakistani heritage men among suspects in local data – collected in Greater Manchester, West and South Yorkshire – and criticised a continued failure to gather robust data at a national level.The home secretary, Yvette Cooper, confirmed the government would accept all 12 recommendations of Casey’s rapid review, including setting up a statutory inquiry into institutional failures. This marked a significant reversal after months of pressure on Labour to act
Carer’s allowance: woman who won case against DWP calls for end to ‘sickening harassment’
The mother of a teenager with cerebral palsy has demanded an end to the “sickening harassment” of unpaid carers after a significant legal victory against the government.Nicola Green, 42, was pursued by the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) for more than a year after she was accused of fraudulently claiming nearly £3,000 in carer’s allowance.When Green insisted she was innocent, the DWP wrote to her employer without her knowledge to try to recoup the sum from her pay.The part-time college worker, whose 17-year-old son has a number of health conditions, appealed against the fine before a tribunal judge, who quashed it in barely 30 minutes last month.Speaking after her legal victory, Green said she had been treated “like a criminal” by the DWP over the £2,823
Ministers plan to use NHS app to expand clinical trials as part of UK-wide drive
The government is aiming for a significant expansion of clinical trials in the UK, and plans to use the NHS app to encourage millions of people in England to take part in the search for new treatments.Patients will eventually be automatically matched with studies based on their health data and interests, via the app. The plans envisage alerting them to the trials using smartphone notifications.NHS trusts that fail to meet targets on trials will also be publicly named, and the best performers will be prioritised for funding, as part of improvements designed to restore Britain’s global reputation for medical research.The strategy is one of the first to emerge from the government’s forthcoming 10-year health plan for England
My father died in a care home and all I got was denials and excuses | Letters
The situation at The Firs care home in Nottinghamshire, which was shut down in April, is dreadful for patients, families and staff (‘How did it get to this?’ What happens when care in a residential home breaks down, 7 June). But the Care Quality Commission (CQC) is not the only body to blame for failings like this.It can’t investigate individual complaints – this is mostly down to the local government and social care ombudsman (LGSCO), but also the parliamentary and health service ombudsman (PHSO). It depends on who funds the care; in theory the same care home could be dealing with two ombudsman staff unaware of each other. Both are equally damned on Trustpilot with overwhelmingly negative reviews
Reeves considers softening inheritance tax changes amid non-dom backlash
Britons in Israel told to notify Foreign Office to receive instructions on how to leave
Keir Starmer’s biggest U-turns since Labour came to power
When Starmer speaks, the world listens – or so Labour imagines | John Crace
Cooper says law on rape being tightened so adults cannot use consent as defence against charge of raping child under 16 – as it happened
British Council cuts are a false economy that would erode the UK’s global influence | Letters