B&B buy loan portfolio from GMAC RFC

Bradford & Bingley has today purchased a mortgage loan portfolio from GMAC-RFC for a consideration of around £210m.
This is the second purchase resulting from an agreement announced in January 2005 to acquire up to £1.4bn of loans during 2005 from GMAC-RFC.

The purchase, funded from Bradford & Bingley's existing resources, has been made by Mortgage Express, its wholly owned subsidiary.

This latest loan portfolio acquisition will increase the Bradford & Bingley Group's total managed assets, which stood at £38.2bn on December 31, 2004, by around 0.55%.

All lending in the portfolio is secured on UK residential property and has a similar credit risk profile to previous portfolio acquisitions. In addition to reviewing the credit controls GMAC-RFC employed in originating the loan portfolio, Mortgage Express has tested the loan book using its own credit scoring process to confirm that it meets the Bradford & Bingley Group's credit standards.

The acquired mortgages are, by value, approximately 17% buy-to-let, 55% self-certified with the remainder standard mortgages. The book has an average loan size of approximately £135,000 and an average loan to value of approximately 78%