LONDON, Nov 10 (Reuters) - Aldermore, the new British bankthat last month cancelled plans for a stock market listing, saidits loan book swelled 10 percent to 4.4 billion pounds ($7billion) in the latest quarter.
The bank, which was expected to be valued at about 800million pounds in the that was pulled after a fall in stockmarkets sapped investor interest in new listings, said thatlending to customers was up by 30 percent since the start of theyear.
Third-quarter profit almost matched the 18.6 million poundsAldermore made in the first six months of the year, the banksaid, though it did not disclose detailed results. Third-quarterreturn on equity - stripping out costs related to its initialpublic offering - approached 20 percent, which it had targetedby the end of 2017.
Aldermore is one of a group of so-called "challenger" banksaiming to break the dominance of Britain's big five of Lloyds, HSBC, Royal Bank of Scotland,Barclays and Santander UK, which togetheraccount for more than three quarters of lending in Britain.
Aldermore is headed by former Barclays executive PhillipMonks and backed by private equity firms AnaCap and MorganStanley Alternative Investment Partners.(1 US dollar = 0.6290 British pound) (Reporting by Steve Slater; Editing by David Goodman)