BRISTOL & West, Britain's ninth largest building society, which is currently being taken over by Bank of Ireland in a £600 million sterling deal, has expanded its share of the residential mortgage market from 0.6 per cent to 2 per cent in the first half of the year.

This performance contrasted sharply with the performance of the larger mortgage lenders, Abbey National and Halifax Building Society, which suffered contractions in their shares of the core mortgage market during the first half.

The building society raised pretax profits 23 per cent to £45 million before exceptionals. Including exceptional charges of £4.1 million associated with the takeover by Bank of Ireland, pre tax profits came out at £40.9 million.

Gross lending at B&W rose 54 per cent to £696 million while net lending doubled to £261 million. Net interest receivable from continuing operations rose from £71.9 million to £73.9 million and other income and charges rose to £29.6 million.