Metro Bank, the loss-making challenger to the UK’s established high street institutions, is pressing ahead with plans for a stock market listing next month that is expected to value the company at nearly £2bn.
The lender, which has opened 40 branches since launching in 2010, plans to raise £500m from its 450 shareholders and is seeking a stock market listing in the first quarter. Its shares are expected to start trading at the end of February.
Metro Bank became Britain’s first new high street bank for 150 years when it opened at Holborn in central London six years ago. It is the biggest of the challenger banks, with deposits rising to £5.1bn at the end of December, from £2.9bn a year earlier. Customer accounts increased by 46% year on year to 655,000.
Lending to business and personal customers more than doubled last year, reaching £3.5bn at the end of December. Business customers accounted for nearly two-thirds of deposits and for 36% of lending. Total assets rose 68% to £6.2bn.
Metro Bank made an underlying loss after tax of £10.1m in the fourth quarter, down from £10.7m in the previous three months, marking a “return to the trend of declining quarterly losses”, it said.
The bank’s branches are across London and the south-east, and it plans to open up to nine more outlets this year, including on Kings Road in Chelsea, in Bexleyheath and in Wimbledon. It now employs more than 2,000 people after hiring 449 in 2015, and wants to take on another 500 this year.
