Rooftop Mortgages to close as market crumbles

Rooftop, which targets customers who find it difficult borrowing from a high street lender, made 40 redundancies and reshuffled 12 staff members last December as the credit crunch began to take its toll on the business. The closure follows JPMorgan’s acquisition of Rooftop’s parent company Bear Stearns for just $10 a share last month after rumours led its liquidity pool to shrink. Ginny Darrow, chief executive officer of Rooftop, says: “Market conditions have continued to deteriorate and with no signs of recovery in the securitisation and whole loan trading markets, which underpin our str...