Reply To: Nationwide takeover of Virgin Money

[JDB]

It’s attractive to Nationwide as a way to grow their business inorganically with a rather different customer base and if the transaction goes ahead they are only paying about half book value for a business that has readily addressable excess expenses both in the cost of licensing the Virgin brand and the lack of scale. The concept of Virgin Money being a real challenger bank just hasn’t happened and the hybrid model doesn’t look right in the current market.

I doubt the credit cards were much of a consideration and the Virgin Atlantic cards probably aren’t a very attractive proposition except for the Virgin airline and/or group.