Will the Co-op Bank survive as an independent company?

"It's a great bank", Liam Coleman told me.

The chief executive of Co-operative Bank is upbeat but he also has something to sell.

The Co-op Bank is much loved but loss making and the remarkable loyalty of £4 million - an undoubted asset - isn't enough to carry the bank thorough its latest problems.

The bank is principled but weak.

Plan A was to raise capital as the profits rolled in but the bank has found itself unable to make money - weighed down by PPI compensation, I.T. costs and a low interest rate environment.

Plan B is to find a buyer. The mortgage book, the 1.4 million current accounts will undoubtedly appeal to the likes of Virgin Money and TSB. The pension liabilities and extra investment required will not.

The banks ethical policy is written into its articles of association but they are only as strong as the owners commitment to them.

A new buyer may decide they are too restrictive.

Professor Kevin Dowd, from Durham University Business School, told ITV News that any future owner would immediately look to further cut costs.

In his view, some of the 100 remaining branches will close, some of the 4,000 remaining staff will be laid off.

Parts of this business are salvageable but the danger is they end up absorbed into a different company.

There's currently a risk that Co-op Bank goes the way of Alliance and Leicester - and Bradford and Bingley before it - and is broken-up.