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Coventry Building Society has completed the purchase of the Co-operative Bank, after a £780m deal agreed with its former hedge fund owners.
The new owners will hope to firmly end the era of turmoil for the Co-op Bank following an accounting scandal that left a £1.5bn black hole. Its reputation also suffered when the bank’s former chair Paul Flowers, a former Labour councillor and Methodist church minister nicknamed the “Crystal Methodist”, pleaded guilty to possession of cocaine, crystal meth and ketamine in 2014.