Subprime fall-out Alliance & Leicester would have faced a dangerously uncertain future if it had not agreed to a £1.3bn ($2.3bn) all-share takeover by Spain’s Banco Santander, the UK mortgage bank’s acting chairman told angry shareholders on Tuesday.
Roy Brown said the decision to sell the bank for 317p per share in July, less than half its price in January, had been justified by the intensification of the world financial crisis.
