Re-started, actually.
Mark Kleinman at Sky.com had news on Wednesday, that Lloyds Banking Group is auctioning off a portfolio holdings in scores of British companies, together worth something in the region of £400m.
Names like David Lloyd Leisure, House of Fraser, and various construction firms were mentioned — all held in a portfolio called Integrated Finance which Lloyds inherited with its rash takeover of HBOS at the height of the Crunch.
The bank tried to sell the portfolio last spring. It’s probably glad now that it failed that time.
Kleinman says UBS is handling the auction, which was begun earlier this week, and hopes to sell the stakes as a job lot.
This, of course, is just one hangover from the antics of Peter Cummings, the gung-ho head of corporate lending at HBOS, who would evidently extend money to any businessman, so long as they were short and fat and in property or retail, or both.
Related links:
Lloyds’ portfolio of pain – Andrew Hill
No mourning for Peter Cummings – FT People column
HBOS’s gambler deals himself out – Guardian