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LONDON, July 19 (Reuters) - Britain's 7th-largest lender,TSB, which recently floated on the stock market, isplanning to bid for 1.4 billion pounds worth of state-ownedmortgages, Sky news reported on its website on Saturday, withoutciting its sources.
TSB is interested in acquiring the residential loan book ofUK Asset Resolution (UKAR), a so-called zombie bank that iswinding down the loans of Northern Rock and Bradford &Bingley.
Both were two of Britain's customer-owned "buildingsocieties" which were nationalised in the run-up to the 2008financial crisis.
The British government has a 100-percent shareholding inUKAR Limited, which supports around 467,000 customers with 61.2billion pounds ($104.6 billion) worth of loans.
In June, UKAR said it had begun the potential sale of aportfolio of residential mortgages but said it would onlycomplete the transaction if the price represented value to thetaxpayer.
TSB said it would not comment on Saturday's report and UKARwas not immediately available for comment when contacted byReuters.
According to Sky, which did not cite its sources, the ChiefExecutive of TSB Paul Pester is interested in buying theresidential loan book from UKAR.
TSB's majority shareholder remains Lloyds Banking Group, which is 25 percent-owned by the government followinga 20-billion-pound state bailout in 2008.
In June, Lloyds sold a 35 percent stake in TSB, valuing thebusiness at 1.3 billion pounds.
Lloyds was ordered to sell the 631 TSB branches by Europeanregulators by the end of 2015 as a condition of the bailout, andinitially planned to sell one quarter of the business. ($1 = 0.5851 British Pounds) (Reporting by Costas Pitas; Editing by Sonya Hepinstall)
