Lloyds Banking Group posts £4bn first-half loss

by Gill Montia

Story link: Lloyds Banking Group posts £4bn first-half loss

Lloyds Banking Group has posted a pro-forma loss of £4 billion for the first half of 2009.

The pro-forma format of the results has been adopted to reflect the impact of the acquisition of HBOS by Lloyds TSB and allows for certain adjustments.

Consequently a pre-tax profit of £6 billion has also been reported for the period.

The bank, which is 43% state-owned, took a hit of £13.4 billion on bad loans “reflecting prudent valuation of HBOS’s commercial property related assets”.

HBOS accounted for 80% of the charge.

The group expects 2009 to be loss making but with “lower expected impairment charges in the second half”.

Group chief executive, Eric Daniels, said: “Our first half loss was driven by the high levels of impairment. The core business delivered a resilient performance, despite the weak economy.”

He added: “We are successfully managing the short-term issues and are well positioned to outperform over the medium term, providing value to our customers and shareholders.”