Nationwide has completed its acquisition of Virgin Money for an estimated £2.9 billion.

Virgin Money’s listings on the London and Australian stock exchanges have ben cancelled and chief executive David Duffy has stepped down and been replaced by Nstionwide’s chief finance officer Chris Rhodes. 

Nationwide says it will scrap the Virgin brand after four years and will rebrand the bank over the following two years.

In July, the Competition and Markets Authority cleared the merger between the two lenders, issuing a statement saying: “The merger does not give rise to a realistic prospect of a substantial lessening of competition” across residential and landlord mortgages, as well as credit card businesses.

The deal, on the cards since spring, is unprecedented – mutual lenders have never before acquired a FTSE-listed bank, but the purchase makes Nationwide the UK’s second-biggest provider of mortgages and savings and the country’s largest branch network behind Lloyds.

Nationwide thus becomes exposed to the banking market for the first time. 

Virgin Money shareholders have received 218p in cash and a 2p dividend to be paid in this financial year. The offer was a 38% premium to Virgin Money’s 159.1p closing price on March 6, the day before the deal was announced