B&B/WaMu: Tomayto, tomahto

Bradford and Bingley, the troubled UK mortgage lender, is selling a 23% stake to private equity firm TPG for £179m and raising an additional £258m from its existing shareholders. Following on from a earlier bungled rights offering attempt, that has sent the stock spiralling down. But shareholders should probably see the glass half full. Just look at some recent US capital raisings. Both Washington Mutual and Wachovia appear to have given away much more. WaMu raised $7bn from TPG and a select gr...