B&B economies costs 370 jobs

by Gill Montia

Story link: B&B economies costs 370 jobs

Bradford & Bingley (B&B) has announced cost cutting measures that will result in 370 job losses.

The beleaguered buy-to-let lender aims to save £15 million by closing its Borehamwood mortgage centre and removing around 50 mortgage advisers from its branches.

The bank will also be scrutinising its head office support functions but no branch closures are expected.

Operations at the Borehamwood centre will relocate to B&B’s offices in Bingley, West Yorkshire, next year.

It has been a tough week so far for B&B; its credit rating has been downgraded by Fitch to one notch above “junk” status and its share price fell to 24p on Tuesday, although it recovered on the news that the bank had renegotiated a contract that obliged it to buy further mortgages from GMAC-RFC.

Chief executive Richard Pym is fighting back and has announced that the business is well capitalised and has now written off or sold all of its mortgage backed securities that could be responsible for more bad debt.