Co-Op to bid for Lloyds branches

I have learned that the board of Co-Op has decided today that Co-Op Banking group will submit a second-round bid for the 632 branches and £36bn of deposits being sold by Lloyds as Verde.

Here is my earlier post on why Co-Op would be favourite to own these branches, once it has made a bid.

Co-Op will make the announcement in the next half hour or so, I understand - but will not submit a bid till next week.

So far Lloyds has only received one bid, of around £1.5bn, from NBNK, the newly created business set up to buy banks.

The bid from the Co-Op is a bit of good news for Lloyds, in a week when its chief executive decided to take a temporary leave of absence, to recover from exhaustion.