Directors' report
Chairman and Chief Executive's introduction - Introduction
2007 proved to be an eventful and difficult year for the banking sector.
Despite the turmoil in the financial markets in the second half of the year, Bradford & Bingley's underlying business progressed satisfactorily with underlying profit before tax of £351.6m, gaining by some 5%.
The disappointment of the year has been the write-downs and impairments, caused by the manifesting of the liquidity crunch, that have been made against a very small proportion of our Treasury assets. Largely because of this, our statutory profit before tax was reduced to £126.0m.
The Group's conservatism and diversity of funding, combined with our policy to prefund our new business pipeline and our decision to dispose of non-core mortgage portfolios, meant that we weathered the much publicised liquidity problems in the financial markets well.
with underlying profit before
tax up 8% to £335.9m, with
record gross and net lending
and record pipeline of new
mortgages
of £2.5 billion equivalent
in Euros, Sterling and US Dollars from the Aire
Valley Mastertrust
residential lending
proposition through
mortgage intermediaries,
targeting niche segments
of the market to achieve
higher margins
before tax up 11% to
£181.5 million and residential new net lending up 92% to £4.5 billion with
residential lending
balanced up 14% to £35.6 billion
our commercial lending
and housing association mortgage portfolios for £4 billion, following a review
of growth potential and
capital utilisation of these assets
