Abbey's big losses lead "return to core business"

The Abbey National Group has posted losses of £934m for 2002, compared with a profit of £1.47m a year earlier, and halved dividends to 25p which has forced the bank to return to its core focus on personal financial services. The chief executive's review of Abbey's financial results for 2002 described how a buoyant Personal Financial Services business was dragged down by large write-offs and charges relating to goodwill, credit exposures to wholesale banking and life assurance embedded value. Although the dismal state of the markets is partly to blame, the chief executive, Luqm...