Scarborough Building Society - Merger With The Skipton Building Society

Merger With The Skipton Building Society

Due to pressures of the credit crunch and poor lending the Scarborough needed to find a 'safe' building society to be taken over by. On 3 November 2008, Skipton and Scarborough Building Societies announced their intended merger in a joint statement: "This is a real opportunity for the two North Yorkshire-based societies to create an enlarged Society that is even better placed to deal with any future uncertainties in the financial marketplace. The two societies are well matched, having similar business models, a strong geographical fit and shared commitment to mutuality, their members, their people and their local communities.

"Scarborough Building Society has seen difficult trading conditions leading to a substantial impact on profit and a resultant weakening capital position. In addition, the board of Scarborough has considered the possible impacts of continuing house price falls and the impending recession in the UK, and has concluded that the effect would be an unacceptable reduction in its capital resources and that, to fully protect the interests of its members, it should approach Skipton Building Society as its preferred merger partner".

David Cutter will become chief executive of the enlarged Society, which will be called Skipton Building Society and will be headquartered at The Bailey, Skipton. As previously announced, the current chief executives of both societies, John Goodfellow and John Carrier, will continue with their planned retirements on 31 December 2008.

The enlarged Society is now the fifth largest building society with approximately 860,000 members and over £16 billion of assets.

During the take over, all employees from the original Scarborough Build Society were made redundant and the headquarters was moved to Skipton.