Central bank buys Danish lender

Roskilde put itself up for sale in July

Denmark's central bank is to lead a buyout of struggling lender Roskilde Bank after no private buyer came forward to purchase the company.

The move comes after Roskilde secured a 750m Danish crowns ($150m; £81m) bailout from the Danish Nationalbanken, back in July.

Roskilde said at the time that it was putting itself up for sale after bigger than expected bad debt losses.

Trading in Roskilde shares was suspended on Monday.

Nationalbanken said it would buy all Roskilde assets and take over all debt and other liabilities.

The bank has 24 branches and about 100,000 customers.

It is the second small-sized Danish bank to get itself into financial difficulties as a result of the credit crunch.

Earlier this year rival Trelleborg was forced to sell itself to larger lender Sydbank.