Nick Goodway: Pensions pitfall is putting off the banks’ buyers

There is no shortage of banks up for sale in this country. Over the next few months and years, investors and trade buyers will be given the opportunity to cast their eye over at least three serious players — Clydesdale, Williams & Glyn and Co-op Bank.

All are to a greater or lesser extent products of the financial crisis, which began in 2008.

The most recent update from Niall Booker, chief executive of Co-op Bank, made it pretty clear that any hopes for a stock-market flotation have been dashed for a couple of years at least. The bank will not be profitable this year or next and will be doing well to break even in 2017.

What is more likely to happen before any initial public offering is the hedge funds which own 80% of the bank, thanks to their bail-in two years ago, will seek to buy out the remaining 20% owned by the Co-operative Group.

That way they could take the bank out of the limelight for a couple of years, continue Booker’s hard work and head for the stock market some time around 2018. Who knows where the business or the economy will be then but it’s probably worth a bet for the hedge funds.

With Williams & Glyn, which is being sold by Royal Bank of Scotland on the orders of the European Commission, the process is well under way for a demerger and subsequent float some time in the final quarter of 2016.

That could be screwed up by the Competition and Markets Authority, which has been told by the Treasury to ensure that the spun-off business is robust enough to stand alone. In July that investigation was put on hold until the Prudential Regulation Authority has looked at the plan.

At Clydesdale, the combination of the Scottish bank and Yorkshire Bank which is being spun off by National Australia Bank, the process is progressing with chief executive David Duffy saying he expects a float by next January, valuing the bank at some £2.5 billion.