Britannia was a mutual building society in the United Kingdom. It had its headquarters in Leek, Staffordshire, and was the second-largest building society in the UK at 31 December 2007. It became an important provider of both mortgages and savings, as well as commercial lending. It merged with The Co-operative Banking Group in 2009, and was legally dissolved as a separate organisation on 1 August that year; it has remained as a trading name of The Co-operative Bank ever since. In January 2013, the Co-operative announced that the brand would be phased out by the end of 2013, and began rebranding branches under its own name. However, the Co-operative Bank's own financial crisis resulted in the original plans being abandoned. Many Britannia branches were instead closed, and only a small number were retained and rebranded.
History
Britannia traced its history back to 1856, when the Leek and Moorlands Permanent Benefit Building Society was formed. By 1857, the Society had 204 members; by 1921, it had assets in excess of £1m. The Society evolved into Britannia through a series of mergers, firstly with Longton Mutual Permanent Benefit Building Society in 1938 and notably with the NALGO Building Society in 1960—by which time it had become one of the ten largest societies, the Westbourne Park in 1965 and with the Eastern Counties in 1974. The following year, a further merger saw the change of name to Britannia. Britannia also included the engagements of the former Colne and District Permanent Benefit, Westbury and District Permanent, The Glantawe Permanent, Stoke-on-Trent Permanent, Alfreton, Wellington and District, Denton, Over Darwen, Driffield, Colne, Welsh Economic, Blackheath and Mornington building societies.
Bristol & West
The last acquisition was the deposit base and branch network of former building society Bristol & West from Bank of Ireland in May 2005. This was the first major re-mutualisation in the United Kingdom and brought membership of the enlarged society to just under three million. Bank of Ireland retained ownership of the Bristol & West brand and all other parts of the business.
On 21 January 2009, Co-operative Financial Services and Britannia Building Society proposed a merger, first mooted in October 2008. On 29 April 2009, Britannia members voted overwhelmingly to become part of Co-operative Financial Services, the first such merger between different types of mutual under the Butterfill Act. CFS, which incorporated the Co-operative Bank and Co-operative Insurance Society, was itself a subsidiary of the Co-operative Group. On 1 August 2009, Britannia Building Society was legally dissolved and Neville Richardson, its last Chief Executive, became Chief Executive of the enlarged CFS. Coincidentally, the largest remaining building society, Nationwide, a competitor with Britannia, was itself formed in 1884 as the Co-operative Permanent Building Society to provide services to members of the co-operative movement.
Subsidiaries
The Britannia group of companies included the following principal subsidiary undertakings:
Britannia International Limited
Britannia Treasury Services Ltd.
Britsafe Insurance Services Ltd.
Platform Home Loans Ltd., subprime mortgage loans for the use of UK intermediaries only
In 1999, Britannia was one of seven building societies unsuccessfully targeted by the carpetbagger Michael Hardern. To fight this threat to its mutual status, in 1998, the Society announced that new members would in future be required to assign any future windfall payments to the Britannia Building Society Foundation, a charity set up for this purpose. On the merger with Co-operative Financial Services, members of the former Britannia Building Society became members of the Co-operative Group. The membership reward scheme was replaced with the Co-operative Membership scheme on 31 December 2009, when members began to earn dividend based on their account holding and borrowing with Britannia.
