Ross Abercromby, the senior analyst at Moody’s, appears to have played a crucial role in the fate of B&B.

It is his name on the Moody’s credit report that provided TPG with the opportunity to pull out of its deal to take a 23 per cent stake in Bradford & Bingley. The credit rating agency’s decision to downgrade the long-term bank deposit rating and the senior debt rating of B&B allowed TPG, the investment group, to withdraw its plans for the troubled mortgage lender.

Moody’s gave a number of reasons for the downgrade. It said that B&B could be forced to take further write-downs in the low to “mid double-digit million pound range” on top of the £300 million taken so far.

The credit rating agency highlighted B&B’s obligation to acquire mortgages from GMAC of up to £350 million per quarter. “These mortgages have displayed a significantly faster deterioration of asset quality than the own-originated loan portfolio of B&B,” it said.

Moody’s expressed concern about B&B’s own portfolio of buy-to-let and self-certification loans, which has continued to worsen, although not at the same rate as the GMAC portfolio. It said that the deterioration in asset quality seen in the first half of the year was expected to worsen.

It said that the downgrade also reflected the weakening position of unsecured creditors in view of about 50 per cent of assets being pledged to secure creditors. “Moody’s anticipates further deterioration of some of its main asset classes over the next quarters and this is expected to continue to weaken B&B’s overall financial flexibility despite the proposed capital injection [its £400 million rights issue].”

The agency added that it expected the likelihood of support being made available to troubled banks such as B&B “very high in the short-term”, which it said had been seen in various actions, such as the extraordinary support provided to Northern Rock.

Credit rating agency Fitch yesterday said that it has kept B&B on Rating Watch Negative. Standard & Poor’s said that B&B’s short-term credit rating remains on CreditWatch with negative implications.

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