Richard Branson buys Somerset bank

A SOMERSET bank has been bought by Sir Richard Branson's Virgin Money.

The business purchased Church House Trust, which is based at Goldcroft in Yeovil, for £12.3 million and will invest a further £37.3 million.

The bank says one of its core values is providing a personal service, enabling customers to deal with people rather than machines.

"The Church House Trust business offers us a strong platform for growth," Richard Branson said.

"Virgin Money aims to bring simplicity to the UK banking market which has traditionally been a complex sector."

Church House Trust managing director David Batten, who is a former managing partner of Battens solicitors, said: "Church House Trust's conservative business model has proven to be attractive to Virgin Money as a sound base from which to fulfil its banking ambitions."

Church House Trust is the reincarnation of a bank originally founded in 1792 when Messrs Batten & Co Private Bankers was formed by Edward Batten, a West Country landowner and solicitor. He was the senior of three partners and was subsequently joined by his son John Batten in 1829. The bank flourished through a succession of mergers and acquisitions in the nineteenth and early twentieth century, but was adversely affected by casualties among the Batten family in the First World War, leading to it being swallowed up in 1918 by what eventually became the Westminster Bank.

Lt Colonel Bill Batten, grandfather of David Batten, assumed control of the legal practice again in 1924. This was steadily expanded until the bank was re-founded in 1978.