LONDON (Reuters) - British challenger bank OneSavings is in advanced talks to buy Charter Court Financial Services and create a lender worth more than 1.6 billion pounds, Sky News reported on Saturday.
OneSavings, founded in 2011 as part of a private equity buyout of the Kent building society KRBS, is one of the banks aiming to challenge Britain's biggest lenders. Charter Court, a specialist mortgage bank, was launched in 2008.
Sky said under the plan OneSavings, which has a market value of 905 million pounds, would use its equity to make a bid for Charter Court, valued at the close of Friday at 733 million pounds.
Sky said OneSavings' CEO Andy Golding would be expected to run the combined group. A spokesman for OneSavings declined to comment and Charter Court could not immediately be reached.
Britain's banking sector is dominated by six huge lenders - RBS (LON:RBS), Lloyds (LON:LLOY), Barclays (LON:BARC), HSBC, Santander (MC:SAN) and building society Nationwide.
Below them challengers like Metro Bank and Virgin Money (LON:VM) - acquired by Clydesdale Bank owner CYBG - and specialists such as OneSavings have been growing.