Loses at French banking arm break Egg

Egg, the online bank put up for sale by its majority shareholder Prudential, said full-year pre-tax loss widened to £34

Egg, the online bank put up for sale by its majority shareholder Prudential, said full-year pre-tax loss widened to £34.4 million sterling from £16.6 million.

The bank said operating losses in France once again exceeded profits generated by the bank's UK business.

The loss was at the upper end of analyst expectations, which had ranged from £26-35 million.

Egg gave no details of its plans for its French business, saying simply that, whilst it still believes there is a significant market opportunity for a consumer-sided financial services business in France "we clearly underestimated the level of investment required to deliver a scale business."

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"As we explained last October we do not believe that it is appropriate for Egg to pursue this opportunity on a standalone basis. The search for a strategic partner has since been superseded by Prudential considering proposals for its shareholding in Egg," said chief executive Mr Paul Gratton in a statement.

In the meantime, Egg is managing discretionary expenditure tightly in Egg France as it awaits the conclusion of this process.

In the UK, profits have more than doubled to £72.8 million, and it was a record year for customer acquisition. Within unsecured lending in the UK, Egg said it continued to grow its market share of card balances to almost 6 per cent taking 10 per cent of the net growth in the UK credit card market.