New York: Billionaire investor Wilbur Ross said on Sunday he is prepared to commit up to £500 million (Dh2.79 billion) to support Virgin Money in its bid to buy the branch network of the Royal Bank of Scotland.
Ross said he has also invested $100 million (Dh367 million) in Virgin Money, after finishing negotiations over the weekend. That would give him a 21 per cent stake in Virgin Money, a source familiar with the situation said. Ross teamed up with Virgin in 2007 when it attempted to buy lender Northern Rock and said he had been following its progress since.
Virgin Money is the consumer credit arm of entrepreneur Richard Branson's Virgin Group and has frequently been named as a potential suitor for a slice of the billions of pounds in British banking assets set to be sold over the coming years.
"The UK banking system is clearly going to go through a big overhaul," Ross told Reuters by telephone. "There will equally clearly be some new winners and some new losers.
"We think that, given the management team and the reputation that Virgin Money has built up, they are ideally positioned to be one of the big winners," he said.
