Lloyds and Co-op seal the deal on Project Verde

Lloyds Banking Group has agreed to the terms
of sale of its 623 branches – also known as Project Verde – to The
Co-operative Bank (Co-op), UK.

The Verde business
has 632 branches across the UK, representing 6% of the UK branch
network, with approximately 5m customers. With the combination of
the Co-op business, it will amount to approximately 7% of UK
current accounts.

According to Lloyds, the proposed transaction
of the 623 branches would be based upon a “revised smaller business
perimeter, which has no funding gap in terms of assets and
liabilities, and is likely, in terms of scale, to have equity
capital of £1.5bn supporting it”.

Lloyds said in a statement that NBNK
Investments has been informed about the announcement
and the  lender appreciates NBNK’s “interest in
the Verde business” .

The final stages of the Project Verde
transaction is subject to agreeing satisfactory documentation, the
approval of the respective boards of Lloyds and Co-op, and further
discussions with the FSA, HMT and the European Commission.

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