Egg on Pru's face.

Investors Chronicle, February, 2007

Prudential has surprised the City with plans to sell struggling internet bank Egg to Citibank for GBP575m. The move comes just a year after Prudential's chief executive, Mark Tucker, said that Egg was no longer for sale. And it now values Egg at well below the price suggested by Prudential's December 2005 acquisition of the 21.7 per cent of Egg that it didn't already own - that valued the lender at more than GBP970m. According to Mr Tucker, though, the deal "realises greater value for our shareholders than retaining the business within the group".

Mr Tucker could be right. Egg's fortunes have continued to deteriorate and the company, which remains heavily loss-making, is now expected to deliver a pre-tax operating loss of GBP145m for end-December 2006 -...

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