The Co-operative Group has confirmed it will submit a second-round bid next week for the hundreds of branches being sold by Lloyds Banking Group. Lloyds is selling 632 branches and £36bn of deposits, after being ordered to by the European Commission following the bank's rescue by the UK government.
The government currently still holds a 41% stake in Lloyds. BBC business editor Robert Peston said so far Lloyds had received only one bid, of about £1.5bn, from NBNK. NBNK was co-founded by Lord Levene, chairman of insurer Lloyd's of London, in 2010 as a business set up to establish a UK retail bank.

The bid from the Co-op came in the same week as LLoyds chief executive Antonio Horta-Osorio decided to take a temporary leave of absence, to recover from...Read more here--> BBC News - Co-op confirms second-round bid for Lloyds branches