Bristol & West (B&W) was a former mutual

building society A building society is a financial institution owned by its members as a mutual organization. Building societies offer banking and related financial services, especially savings and mortgage lending. Building societies exist in the United Kingdo ...

in the

United Kingdom The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, commonly known as the United Kingdom (UK) or Britain, is a country in Europe, off the north-western coast of the continental mainland. It comprises England, Scotland, Wales and North ...

(UK), one of the first to be

demutualised Demutualization is the process by which a customer-owned mutual organization (''mutual'') or co-operative changes legal form to a joint stock company. It is sometimes called stocking or privatization. As part of the demutualization process, member ...

to become a

publicly traded A public company is a company whose ownership is organized via shares of stock which are intended to be freely traded on a stock exchange or in over-the-counter markets. A public (publicly traded) company can be listed on a stock exchange (list ...

bank A bank is a financial institution that accepts deposits from the public and creates a demand deposit while simultaneously making loans. Lending activities can be directly performed by the bank or indirectly through capital markets. Because ...

in 1997. Bristol & West had its headquarters in

Bristol Bristol () is a city, ceremonial county and unitary authority in England. Situated on the River Avon, it is bordered by the ceremonial counties of Gloucestershire to the north and Somerset to the south. Bristol is the most populous city in ...

England England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Wales to its west and Scotland to its north. The Irish Sea lies northwest and the Celtic Sea to the southwest. It is separated from continental Europe b ...

, UK. B&W became a division of the UK arm of the

Bank of Ireland Bank of Ireland Group plc ( ga, Banc na hÉireann) is a commercial bank operation in Ireland and one of the traditional Big Four Irish banks. Historically the premier banking organisation in Ireland, the Bank occupies a unique position in Iris ...

1997 File:1997 Events Collage.png, From left, clockwise: The movie set of ''Titanic'', the highest-grossing movie in history at the time; ''Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone'', is published; Comet Hale-Bopp passes by Earth and becomes one of t ...

. B&W's main activity was

mortgage A mortgage loan or simply mortgage (), in civil law jurisdicions known also as a hypothec loan, is a loan used either by purchasers of real property to raise funds to buy real estate, or by existing property owners to raise funds for any pu ...

lending for

residential A residential area is a land used in which housing predominates, as opposed to industrial and commercial areas. Housing may vary significantly between, and through, residential areas. These include single-family housing, multi-family residen ...

and

commercial Commercial may refer to: * a dose of advertising conveyed through media (such as - for example - radio or television) ** Radio advertisement ** Television advertisement * (adjective for:) commerce, a system of voluntary exchange of products and s ...

customers, although in

2009 File:2009 Events Collage V2.png, From top left, clockwise: The vertical stabilizer of Air France Flight 447 is pulled out from the Atlantic Ocean; Barack Obama becomes the first African American to become President of the United States; 2009 Iran ...

, its business was transferred to Bank of Ireland and it became a

shell company A shell corporation is a company or corporation that exists only on paper and has no office and no employees, but may have a bank account or may hold passive investments or be the registered owner of assets, such as intellectual property, or s ...

, and stopped accepting new customers. The Bristol & West

brand A brand is a name, term, design, symbol or any other feature that distinguishes one seller's good or service from those of other sellers. Brands are used in business, marketing, and advertising for recognition and, importantly, to create an ...

name has since been replaced by the Bank of Ireland brand. However, , Bristol & West plc shares are still being publicly traded on the

London Stock Exchange London Stock Exchange (LSE) is a stock exchange in the City of London, England, United Kingdom. , the total market value of all companies trading on LSE was £3.9 trillion. Its current premises are situated in Paternoster Square close to St Pau ...

(LSE) under the BWSA ticker, and globally identified under its

International Securities Identification Number An International Securities Identification Number (ISIN) uniquely identifies a security. Its structure is defined in ISO 6166. The ISIN code is a 12-character alphanumeric code that serves for uniform identification of a security through normaliza ...

(ISIN) GB0000510205.

History

Bristol and West Building Society - geograph

The Bristol & West

, registered number 2124201, was founded in , originally as the 'Bristol, West of England and South Wales Permanent Building Society'. It offered

mortgages A mortgage loan or simply mortgage (), in civil law jurisdicions known also as a hypothec loan, is a loan used either by purchasers of real property to raise funds to buy real estate, or by existing property owners to raise funds for any pu ...

in the

and the

south west of England South West England, or the South West of England, is one of nine official regions of England. It consists of the counties of Bristol, Cornwall (including the Isles of Scilly), Dorset, Devon, Gloucestershire, Somerset and Wiltshire. Cities an ...

area, and became a well known

financial services Financial services are the Service (economics), economic services provided by the finance industry, which encompasses a broad range of businesses that manage money, including credit unions, banks, credit-card companies, insurance companies, acco ...

institution in the region. By

1996 File:1996 Events Collage.png, From left, clockwise: A Centennial Olympic Park bombing, bomb explodes at Centennial Olympic Park in Atlanta, set off by a radical Anti-abortion violence, anti-abortionist; The center fuel tank explodes on TWA Flight 8 ...

, Bristol & West was the ninth largest building society in the United Kingdom, at a time when the

UK Government ga, Rialtas a Shoilse gd, Riaghaltas a Mhòrachd , image = HM Government logo.svg , image_size = 220px , image2 = Royal Coat of Arms of the United Kingdom (HM Government).svg , image_size2 = 180px , caption = Royal Arms , date_es ...

relaxed rules on funding for building societies, which led a number of building societies to

demutualise Demutualization is the process by which a customer-owned mutual organization (''mutual'') or co-operative changes legal form to a joint stock company. It is sometimes called stocking or privatization. As part of the demutualization process, memb ...

and convert into

s. In July 1997, Bristol & West demutualised, its shares began being publicly traded on the

(LSE)/ It was also sold to the

for £600m (

€ The euro sign () is the currency sign used for the euro, the official currency of the eurozone and unilaterally adopted by Kosovo and Montenegro. The design was presented to the public by the European Commission on 12 December 1996. It consists o ...

882m), becoming a UK division of the Bank of Ireland, but maintaining its operations and branch network under the existing Bristol & West brand identity. In December

2003 File:2003 Events Collage.png, From top left, clockwise: The crew of STS-107 perished when the Space Shuttle Columbia disintegrated during reentry into Earth's atmosphere; SARS became an epidemic in China, and was a precursor to SARS-CoV-2; A des ...

, the UK's

Financial Services Authority The Financial Services Authority (FSA) was a quasi-judicial body accountable for the financial regulation, regulation of the financial services industry in the United Kingdom between 2001 and 2013. It was founded as the Securities and Investmen ...

(FSA) fined the Bank of Ireland owned Bristol & West subsidiary 'Chase de Vere Financial Solutions' for the "approval and issue of a misleading direct offer promotion". In

2005 File:2005 Events Collage V2.png, From top left, clockwise: Hurricane Katrina in the Gulf of Mexico; the Funeral of Pope John Paul II is held in Vatican City; "Me at the zoo", the first video ever to be uploaded to YouTube; Eris was discovered in ...

, eight years after its purchase, the Bank of Ireland sold its Bristol & West plc savings and investment business to the

Britannia Building Society The Britannia Building Society was founded as the Leek & Moorlands Building Society in Leek in 1856. It expanded steadily as a regional society until the late 1950s when it began a major expansion drive, partly through branch openings but also so ...

. The deal also included Bristol & West's 97 branches, as well as its direct savings business, for £150 million. The sale does not include the Bristol & West brand name, as this was retained by the Bank of Ireland. Existing Bristol & West account holders will be transferred to a Britannia branded product, and all branches will also assume the Britannia brand identity. The Bank of Ireland continued to offer B&W mortgages to

intermediaries An intermediary (or go-between) is a third party that offers intermediation services between two parties, which involves conveying messages between principals in a dispute, preventing direct contact and potential escalation of the issue. In law ...

, packagers, and direct customers; through the Bristol & West brand at its main processing centres in

and

Solihull Solihull (, or ) is a market town and the administrative centre of the wider Metropolitan Borough of Solihull in West Midlands County, England. The town had a population of 126,577 at the 2021 Census. Solihull is situated on the River Blythe i ...

; this meant the closure of a number of smaller mortgage processing centres throughout the country. In

2007 File:2007 Events Collage.png, From top left, clockwise: Steve Jobs unveils Apple's first iPhone; TAM Airlines Flight 3054 overruns a runway and crashes into a gas station, killing almost 200 people; Former Pakistani Prime Minister of Pakistan, Pr ...

, the estimated profit from this mortgage venture was £52 million. Following the

financial crisis of 2007–08 Finance is the study and discipline of money, currency and capital assets. It is related to, but not synonymous with economics, the study of production, distribution, and consumption of money, assets, goods and services (the discipline of fina ...

, the Bristol & West bank was suffering large losses, and as a result, the Bank of Ireland took the decision to limit mortgage lending. On 8 January

, the Bank of Ireland announced to the

stock market A stock market, equity market, or share market is the aggregation of buyers and sellers of stocks (also called shares), which represent ownership claims on businesses; these may include ''securities'' listed on a public stock exchange, as ...

that it would close its

and

Reading Reading is the process of taking in the sense or meaning of Letter (alphabet), letters, symbols, etc., especially by Visual perception, sight or Somatosensory system, touch. For educators and researchers, reading is a multifaceted process invo ...

processing centres (the Reading Centre processed Bank of Ireland mortgages only), and as of 9 January 2009, Bristol & West mortgages would cease accepting new customers. Bank of Ireland now only offer residential mortgages in the UK through the

Post Office Money Post or POST commonly refers to: *Mail, the postal system, especially in Commonwealth of Nations countries **An Post, the Irish national postal service **Canada Post, Canadian postal service **Deutsche Post, German postal service **Iraqi Post, Ira ...

brand and through their own brand in Northern Ireland.

Arms

References

External links

Bristol & West plc
— official website, via

Archive.org The Internet Archive is an American digital library with the stated mission of "universal access to all knowledge". It provides free public access to collections of digitized materials, including websites, software applications/games, music, ...

* — Bristol & West plc live share prices at the

(LSE) {{DEFAULTSORT:Bristol And West Building societies of England 1850 establishments in England 2009 disestablishments in England British companies established in 1850 British companies disestablished in 2009 Banks established in 1850 Banks disestablished in 2009 Defunct banks of the United Kingdom Defunct companies based in Bristol Companies listed on the London Stock Exchange