Seven months on the block and Egg still hasn't found a buyer. The British e-bank-cum-credit card outfit today announced a better set of interims, bringing the haemorrhaging French arm under control, more or less, to come in at a loss of £4m for the half year. Same period last year, it lost £23m. But a quick look at the share price today, down 4.3 per cent at time of writing, shows that the City is less than whelmed. Why? No buyer.

Egg was put up for sale seven months ago by Prudential, the UK insurance business which owns 79 per cent. Since then, loadsabanks have been named as potential buyers for the business. But no-one was interested in lossmaking France, so that is to be closed. And still no buyer. This week, Reuters named JP Morgan, the US investment bank, as a late contender for the business, joining MBNA, Capital One and the Royal Bank of Scotland as candidates. ®

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