They have seen their shares plunge from highs of 530p two years ago to last night's closing price of just 50p.

Last night analysts said the bank's rights issue was turning into a depressing soap opera storyline that would be worthy of Eastenders.
Influential shareholder group the UK Shareholders' Association has advised small shareholders to back the latest rescue plan, although it said it was questionable whether many would want to do so. Many small investors see B&B as an irretrievable basket case.

B&B chairman Rod Kent is expected to resign once the latest £400m rights issue goes through. Without doubt his position has become untenable.

A catalogue of the bank's disastrous decisions makes sorry reading. Having publicly denied the company was planning a rights issue, in mid-May B&B announced plans to raise £300m, taking institutional and small shareholders totally by surprise.

It dismissed speculation that the rights issue meant it had seen a sharp deterioration in its markets. The then-chief executive Steven Crawshaw said demand for buy-to let mortgages remained high, with continuing tenant demand and rising rents.

Less than three weeks later the bank confessed that wasn't actually the case and it had made an £8m loss so far this year. It warned more customers would default on their mortgages and said it expected the slowdown to get worse as customers struggle to keep up mortgage repayments.

B&B claimed the deterioration only became clear in April and was not known by the board until the end of May, but analysts were dumbfounded by the lack of safety checks.

"Week by week figures is a normal way to run a business of this size, " said analyst Alex Potter at Collins Stewart. "Not having the business audited month by month is inexcusable. They would have had very little idea what's going on."

B&B then arranged a new rights issue which gave US buyout group TPG a 23 per cent stake at a bargain basement price of £179m. Investors were up in arms that TPG was given preferential treatment.

In mid June entrepreneur Clive Cowdery got together with institutional shareholders representing 25 per cent of the shares to offer a rescue package. To the fury of shareholders B&B rejected it last week and refused to allow Cowdery access to its books. Cowdery walked away.

Late on Thursday night TPG decided to pull out of the deal following a ratings downgrade by credit agency Moody's, despite assurances to B&B executives that it would not abandon the deal. The move has dealt a severe blow to TPG's reputation and raised further questions about B&B's decision to strike a deal with such an unreliable investor. As a result, B&B has had to turn to shareholders to raise cash in a fully underwritten £400m rights issue.

It is yet to be seen how much this current rights issue and its former incarnations will cost B&B but it is going to run into tens of millions.

The original rights issue was going to cost £24m, but the price rose to £37m with the second option. One thing is for certain: its third incarnation is going to cost even more.

This is on top of the millions of pounds it has cost to get three rights issue documents printed and sent to shareholders.

Analysts believe the best B&B can hope for now is a takeover bid, but it is unlikely the price will be much more than yesterday's closing 50p.

B&B has been saved the ignominy of Northern Rock-style collapse, but it has to be asked at what cost.