Atom Bank sale may be halted after weak bids – report

The effort to sell Atom Bank is close to being abandoned after the process failed to produce offers matching the £600m valuation sought by its shareholders, reported The Financial Times.

Sources told the publication that investors in the Newcastle lender, among them BBVA of Spain and asset manager Toscafund, are weighing whether to stop the sale because buyer interest has been limited.

Pollen Street Capital submitted an offer for Atom, but the proposal was below the price expected by sellers, the same people said.

They added that a materially higher bid from Pollen Street was not expected.

Had Pollen Street succeeded, the deal could have led to Atom being combined with Tandem, a separate digital bank already under its ownership.

If the sale does not proceed, pressure is likely to grow on Atom's leadership. Two people familiar with the discussions said some shareholders would seek management changes if no purchaser emerged.

Those changes could extend to chief executive Mark Mullen, who has been in charge for 12 years, the report said.

The sources added that Yorkshire Building Society and Leeds Building Society also looked at possible offers for Atom, which serves 250,000 cust

Fuente original: Yahoo Finance (https://finance.yahoo.com/markets/stocks/articles/atom-bank-sale-may-halted-112410626.html)