Bradford & Bingley First half results out ....Crystal Balls looked at

The latest Covered Bond report from B & B showed 1 month arrears rising again - they were 2.86 % in May but 23 months have improved - which may mean they are acting faster to stop deterioration in arrears.

Mr Pym may be too late to sweep the Augean stables like any self respecting City new Broom on £2.5 Mn a year ++++ but if he isn't City expectations of losses for the first half year a loss of between £5m and £26m seem optimistic. Remember these will not be AUDITED accounts.

The share issue has been an unqualified disaster and will have left the underwriters smarting with their unexopected losses - dammit it all , they don't underwrite to reduce a chap's losses - simply to boost their profits.

With this inherited shambles leaving UBS and Citi with (say) £100 of unsold stock. The six banks (Barclays, HSBC, HBOS, Lloyds TSB and Royal Bank of Scotland & Abbey) and underwriters are prohibited from selling their B&B shares for 20 days.

With 5% between them Mr Pym's activities and words will be very carefully scrutinised by his new and unexpected shareholders.

He also has to address Crawshaws disastrous agreement to take on board the toxic detritus from GMAC, which B&B are obliged to take on board.

The shares lost 1.5 p today and will lose a lot more tomorrow - even with a Market cap of £700 Mn they offer nothing to a swooping bottom fisher.

PS : This news report from March made us all smile - Toscafund Asset Management led by activist investor Martin Hughes , increased its stake in Redrow from 9.7% to 16.6%, giving it voting rights equivalent to 26.5m shares. It also doubled its stake in Taylor Wimpey to 10.2%, causing share prices to jump... Tosca ... Tosser ?

The TosserFund ™ website has a fascinating Disclaimer - "The collective investment schemes managed by Toscafund are unregulated collective investment schemes, which under UK legislation may only be promoted to persons who are sufficiently experienced and sophisticated to understand the risks involved and satisfy the criteria relating to investment professionals. Persons other than those who would be regarded as investment professional must not act upon the information in this document or acquire units in the scheme to which this document relates. "

"The information contained in this document is believed to be accurate but no warranty is given as to its accuracy and the information, opinions or estimates are subject to change without notice." ©

Too right My Son ! Too right