Treasury asked Goodwin to save Bradford & Bingley

NOTORIOUS banker Fred ‘the Shred’ Goodwin was asked to buy failing lender Bradford & Bingley (B&B) weeks before his own bank collapsed.

In September 2008, Royal Bank of Scotland boss Goodwin was approached by Nick Macpherson, then permanent secretary to the Treasury, about taking over B&B as its share price was in free fall and it was feared the lender might be about to go bust.

In a speech at King’s College London to mark a decade since the financial crisis, Macpherson said: ‘I was invited into Fred Goodwin’s presence, in a very nice office, and I did my sales pitch. At which point Fred said he would have loved to have taken over B&B but that his board wouldn’t let him.’

The following month RBS was handed £46bn of taxpayers’ cash after coming within 24 hours of running out of money.

Goodwin was forced to resign in disgrace, and was later stripped of his knighthood.

B&B was bought by Santander.