Full marks to Bradford & Bingley's big investors. They haven't just sat there moaning about the value the company is proposing to give away to TPG and the underwriters of its cut-price rights issue. They have got up and done something about it.

Whether or not the Resolution move comes to anything, it will serve as a warning to other troubled companies tempted to trample over shareholders' rights.

After years of allowing private equity firms to make a fortune at their expense, it makes sense for B&B's institutions to give it a go themselves. Using B&B as a vehicle for consolidation in the banking sector is much what TPG had in mind itself.

Putting together some of the smaller mortgage lenders would put them in a much stronger position to benefit from the eventual upturn. The regulators would presumably look favourably on this plan just as they appear to have blessed TPG's.

Resolution did a great job for its shareholders, and the individuals involved, when it pursued a similar consolidation strategy with closed life funds.

True, it does not have TPG's undoubted experience in banking. But it could buy in talent with the promise of private equity-style packages.

Another small, but symbolic, attraction of the Resolution plan for B&B's large shareholders would be denying the underwriters their fees. After suffering a downturn in trading, B&B cut the price of its rights issue from 82p to 55p because of concerns that the bulk of the shares would be left with the banks that had agreed to underwrite it, Citigroup and UBS. In return for being let off the hook, Citi and UBS are proposing to charge the company 4.7 per cent of the £258 million sum raised in fees.

Including the fee Goldman Sachs is charging for introducing TPG, the costs of raising £400 million are predicted to be a whopping £37 million.

Citi and UBS would get £3 million even if the rights issue were scrapped. There would be other costs B&B would not be able to recoup, including TPG's £1.8 million break fee. Nevertheless, it should be able to raise the £400 million more cheaply. How much more cheaply will depend on the price the institutions co-ordinated by Resolution are prepared to pay.

It will still be a discount to the market price. And if Resolution ends up with more than 30 per cent, it would have bought control of the company without paying a premium.

For the big shareholders backing Resolution, that would be preferable to seeing TPG buying huge influence, if not control, by acquiring 23 per cent at a bigger discount.

But what about B&B's 1 million retail shareholders? They will have to wait to see the price at which Resolution is buying in and to what extent they are offered some of the shares at the same price.

The institutions that were outraged that B&B was disregarding their right of first refusal over share issues can hardly turn round and back Resolution if it proposes to do the very same thing.

It is understandable that B&B's intitial reaction to Resolution's very vague approach was hostile. But if Resolution comes up with a detailed proposal the board should look at it seriously. And it should consider appointing an independent adviser which, unlike Goldman, is not involved in the current plan.

At least investors might then be presented with a real alternative to the TPG plan at the shareholder vote. And, who knows, Resolution's move might just flush out someone prepared to offer an even better deal to B&B's hapless shareholders.

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