Pru Rejects Egg Bid

Prudential has rejected the bid approach from Citigroup for its online bank, Egg.

Citigroup had offered £950M for Egg. However, the Prudential said that it remains committed to integrating Egg with the rest of its operations.

The Prudential (Pru) had tried before to sell Egg. However, that attempt failed and Jonathan Bloomer CEO was ousted for that failure.

Egg has made losses in the first 6 months of 2006 of £40M, and it is expected to report a loss in the second 6 months as well.

Prudential said:

"It was clear that it was speculative and conditional, and not in our shareholders' interests to pursue further. Our focus remains on our continuing review of the UK business and completing the integration of Egg."

We shall see.