Shareholders in Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS) and Lloyds Banking Group are challenging events that have resulted in major losses for both institutional and individual investors in the banks. In the case of RBS, The Times has reported that local councils in Merseyside and North Yorkshire have joined forces to file a class action law [...]
The disastrous takeover of HBOS by Lloyds TSB has landed the Lloyds Banking Group merged entity in majority state ownership. Negotiations on the group’s participation in the Government’s Asset Protection Scheme extended a week beyond their initial deadline and have ended in an agreement that could see the taxpayer’s stake in the business rise from [...]
The European Commission is recommending that EU member states with banks that are burdened with toxic assets should call time on these institutions. Alongside the issue of new guidelines to the EU’s 27 governments, competition commissioner, Neelie Kroes, has stated that banks that can’t be saved should be wound down or restructured. The commission has [...]
Lloyds Banking Group has reported that profit at its Lloyds TSB business plummeted by 80% in 2008, to £807 million. Revenue fell 8% to £9.9 billion. Meanwhile, the group’s HBOS subsidiary and the UK’s leading mortgage lender, posted a loss of £10.8 billion. The merger of Lloyds TSB and HBOS was completed in January following [...]
Lloyds Banking Group has reported that losses at its merger partner, HBOS, will be £1.6 billion higher than expected for 2008 because of worse than expected trading in December. HBOS is therefore expected to post a loss of £10 billion for the year, with most of its troubles blamed on a £7 billion writedown at [...]
The former heads of Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS) and HBOS have today appeared before the Treasury Select Committee, which is investigating the causes of the UK banking crisis. One time RBS chief executive, Sir Fred Goodwin, assured MPs that he “could not be more sorry” for the events that brought about the near collapse [...]
Lloyds Banking Group, the entity formed out of the merger of Lloyds TSB and HBOS, is reported to be hostile to government proposals to convert its holding of preference shares in the new group into ordinary shares. The Government currently holds a 43% stake in Lloyds Banking Group, which from today becomes the UK’s biggest [...]
A former HBOS employee is claiming damages of £16.7 million from the bank as compensation for alleged sexual, racial and religious discrimination suffered at the hands of her colleagues. Mona Awad, who is a Muslim, claims she began suffering insults about her race and religion shortly after joining the Nottingham branch of HBOS as a [...]
Fears that the merger of Lloyds TSB and HBOS could be delayed by the trustees of the HBOS pension scheme have heightened. The trustees say they will be asking the Court of Session in Edinburgh to put the deal on hold because of concerns that the scheme’s 80,000 members could lose out. The fund has [...]
The merger between British banking giants HBOS and Lloyds TSB, forged in the heat of the turbulence that has so grievously damaged the financial sector in recent months, could be thrown into peril. The nine trustees of the HBOS pension fund are contemplating asking a judge to put the deal, which was given the go [...]
UK banks could be facing huge writedowns on commercial property loans in the year ahead. According to a report in the Daily Telegraph, a collective loss of up to £70 billion is being forecast by Close Brothers. The investment bank is predicting that the value of commercial property could plummet by between 50% and 60% [...]
Interviewed on the BBC’s Panorama programme screened last night, the Deputy Governor of the Bank of England has admitted that the Bank underestimated the severity of the economic crisis. Sir John Gieve explained that it had forecast a correction but not on the scale of the current downturn. The mis-judgment occurred despite awareness that lending [...]
The merger of Lloyds TSB and HBOS, which received its final approval last week, will see the departure of HBOS’s head of corporate banking, Peter Cummings. Mr Cummings is not the only HBOS director to lose his job; in October Lloyds TSB announced details of the new board with only one HBOS executive included in [...]
HBOS shareholders have voted in favour of a merger with Lloyds TSB. The all-share deal, which was brokered by the Government in September, has already been agreed by Lloyds TSB shareholders, 95.98% of whom voted in favour of the takeover. In the case of HBOS, investors are also enthusiastic, with a significant majority casting their [...]
A last minute attempt to prevent the takeover of HBOS by Lloyds TSB has failed. Details of the takeover were announced in September, with the all-share deal approved by the Government, which was prepared to put aside competition issues to see HBOS rescued by its competitor. The proposed merger has since been criticised from a [...]
Lloyds TSB will keep the Bank of Scotland and Halifax brands, once its proposed merger with HBOS is complete. In November the bank announced that the combined businesses would be known as Lloyds Banking Group but it has since decided to retain a multi-brand prescence on the High Street. Other brands that will form part [...]
