If you think BMVers have got it bad, spare a thought for Mortgage Express, the BMV investor’s back-to-back financier of choice - one of the few lenders back in the day who accepted multilet valuations and same day refinance.

The credit crisis has more than pinched most lenders so MX is not unique in that respect. What is perhaps distinct in MX’s suffering is the ongoing woes that beset its owners Bradford and Bingley.

As the biggest lender to the residential investor market in the UK the bank, through MX, was always going to be exposed. However, B+B were always on record stating that the very entrenchment in BTL mortgages effectively mitigated its exposure to the crunch as landlords were savvier than your average Joe.

B+Bs chief exec resigned late Spring due to a recurring “heart condition”. One can only imagine what levels of stress he was taking on board when the full extent of exposure to bad debt in most banks had yet to be declared.

The whole issue of illiquidity would give even the fittest bank CEO a minor coronary condition. When banks are unable to borrow and/or sell on their debt to the bond markets, their funds run dry. Or worse still their existing assets are written down, severely limiting their future borrowing capacity.

When TPG offered a lifeline to B+B earlier in Summer it seemed the US private equity group would bail out the bank by injecting hard cash into its money supply. And it was the very act of downgrading B+Bs credit rating as a result of exposure that allowed TPG to exercise a MAC (material adverse change) clause in their agreement to reverse the £179m investment effectively leaving the bank and MX without any recourse to capital in the short term.

Now the B+B board finds itself both in the precarious position of going cap in hand to its 4 biggest shareholders to cover the shortfall and facing a shareholder revolt for alleged blunders in the aborted TPG deal.

MX, as the riskier arm of B+B, operates on borrowed time. Any shareholders that muscle their way onto the board as a result of reforms will want to see the exposed elements of the business cut loose. Will we see the toning down or even withdrawal of an old BMV bellweather this year?