Shareholders in Alliance & Leicester were to gather to cast their final votes on the mortgage lender’s proposed GBP 1.3 billion (1.6 billion Euro) takeover by Spanish banking giant Santander, Ireland Online reported. An extraordinary general meeting was called by A&L, which saw its share price fall by more than six percent on September 15 amid the market turmoil sparked by the collapse of Lehman Brothers. A&L’s board agreed the sale to Santander in July, saying the bid offered the group vital “certainty” amid the turbulence of the credit crisis. News of the deal came just two weeks before A&L announced that the credit crunch had almost completely wiped out profits in the first six months of the yea, at GBP two million (2.5 million Euro), down from GBP 290 million a year ago. The takeover was also announced amid mounting concerns over bank funding and as A&L’s rivals such as Bradford & Bingley and Halifax Bank of Scotland struggled to secure shareholder backing for their multi-billion pound rights issues.