Abbey National, the listed UK bank, has made £39m (€62m) worth of provisions on its private equity portfolio for the first six months of the year, an eightfold increase on the £5m write-down for the second half of 2001.

Overall, Abbey National made a profit of £697m for the first half of 2002, down a third on the same period last year, mainly due to £208m of write-downs and losses on asset disposals.