Alliance & Leicester
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| Subsidiary/Trading name | |
| Industry | Financial services |
| Fate | Merged into Santander UK plc |
| Successor | Santander UK plc |
| Founded | 1985 |
| Defunct | 2011 |
| Headquarters | Narborough, Leicestershire, UK |
| Products | Banking, insurance |
| Parent | Santander Group |
| Website | www |
Alliance & Leicester plc was a UK-based bank and former building society, formed by the merger in 1985 of the Alliance Building Society and the Leicester Building Society. The business demutualised in 1997 when it was floated on the . It was listed in the FTSE 250 Index, and had been listed in the FTSE 100 Index from April 1997 until June 2008.
The bank was acquired by the Santander Group in October 2008, and transferred its business into Santander UK plc in May 2010. It was fully integrated and rebranded as Santander by late 2011. The bank's international subsidiary based in Douglas, Isle of Man, Alliance & Leicester International, continued to use the Alliance & Leicester name until it was merged into Santander UK in May 2013.
The former building society was formed by the merger of the Alliance Building Society (originally based in and called the Brighton & Sussex) and the Leicester Building Society on 1 October 1985. In 1990, the society acquired Girobank, a major provider of cash-handling services to the government and large companies and current accounts, from the Post Office. With other large building societies such as Halifax and Woolwich, Alliance & Leicester decided to float on the London Stock Exchange, generating windfall payments to members worth up to £5,000 each. Flotation took place on 21 April 1997.
Alliance & Leicester had to be offered a secret £3 billion credit line by HM Treasury in November 2007 to prevent insolvency and a run on the bank. On 14 July 2008 the board of A&L recommended that shareholders accept a takeover bid from Banco Santander for around £1.26 billion. This recommendation was ratified by shareholders at meetings on 16 September 2008. The takeover took effect on 10 October 2008 when shares of the company were from the London Stock Exchange.
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