RSS feedLloyds Banking Group
’Horse, re-headed…
He’s back after two months R&R, which included a week at The Priory. Here’s Lloyds chief executive Antonio Horta-Osorio returning to work at the bank’s Gresham St HQ on Monday…
He doesn’t actually look that relaxed.
[Something for the weekend] A Dickens of a mess
Ebenezer Draghi sighed. These bank books would never come out right, and it was Christmas Eve already. As he struggled, the numbers began to swim before his eyes. So many hundreds of billions of euros,
Dr Robert Peston will see you now
Ring my friend, I said you call Doctor Robert
Day or night he’ll be there any time at all, Doctor Robert
Doctor Robert, you’re a new and better man,
He helps you to understand
He does everything he can,
[Something for the weekend] Don’t offer this man a Rakoff
Jed Rakoff is quite the hero. A New York District judge, he has done what the rest of us would love to do, and busted a cosy deal between bankers and their regulators. In early 2007, just when everything was starting to slide,
Management on the hoof – Headless Horse edition [updated]
It’s all going wrong at The Headless Horse Lloyds Banking Group.
Very wrong.
First, their star hire from RBS has decided to stay put.
RNS statement.
The Group has also been informed by Nathan Bostock,
The Bank of Beard (or Northern Virgin)
Is the sale of Northern Rock to the Grinning Pullover a deal for UK taxpayers?
Chancellor George Osborne says it is:
The sale of Northern Rock to Virgin Money is an important first step in getting the British taxpayer out of the business of owning banks.
[Something for the weekday] Dear Mr Budenberg
Due to unforeseen technical errors — actually it was the over zealous FT spam filter — Neil’s column did not appear at its usual time on Friday. But it’s too good to waste so we are publishing now.
Is the Headless Horse lame?
So, the Headless Horse is thinking about ripping its revenue forecasts.
From the Lloyds Banking Group Q3 trading update.
As a result of the more challenging economic conditions that have arisen over the last few months we are reassessing our assumptions,
Snap news
Breaking pre-market news on Tuesday,
- Olympus admits to covering up losses since 90′s — statement and statement.
- Lloyds Banking Group warns medium-term financial targets may be delayed; however Q3 Net Interest Margin in line with forecasts — statement.
Climb on the Headless Horse
Its CEO is exhausted and has been packed off to the sanatorium, the interim boss has his mind on other things, a large disposal plan is proving difficult to execute, there’s £30bn of debt that needs to be rolled over and the outlook for the UK economy remains dire.
Headless horse (updated)
State owned rival RBS has wasted no time in sticking the boot into Lloyds Banking Group.
Here’s the take of its banking team on António Horta-Osório’s leave of absence.
It’s titled Headless Horse.
Lloyds, de-helmed
The price action in Lloyds Banking Group on Wednesday morning:
The follows confirmation that chief executive António Horta-Osório (47) is taking a break. In the words of Pestowire he is: “physically and mentally exhausted, as a result of the way he has immersed himself in running Lloyds Banking Group”.
Snap news
Breaking pre-market news on Tuesday,
- UBS Q3 net profit solid at CHF980m despite trading scandal – statement.
- BP Q3 RC net profit down 3.7 per cent at $5.14bn on lower output – statement
- Novartis says Q3 pharma sales $8.159bn, cuts 2,000 positions – statement.
[Something for the weekend] Dear Lloyds: nobody wants to buy your bank
– By Neil Collins –
Dear Lloyds: nobody wants to buy your bank
It was going to be a hard-fought auction. The chance to buy a fully-formed network of bank branches, complete (one supposes) with all the trimmings,
Snap news
Breaking pre-market news on Monday,
- Lloyds Banking Group loses its finance director to Resolution — statement and statement.
- Ocado reports Q3 sales growth of just 17 per cent and says Q4 running at the same level — statement.
Snap news
Breaking pre-market news on Monday,
- Societe Generale announces plans to free €4bn of capital by 2013 through disposals — statement.
- Lloyds Banking Group assessing the full implications of the final report from the Independent Commission on Banking — statement.
Celebrity knife catching with Lord Sugar
In the next episode Donald Trump backs up the truck and buys BofA.
Lloyds impaired
It seemed too good to last… and it was.
Lloyds Banking Group has bucked the trend in the UK banks sector and reported a disappointing set of half year figures.
At pixel time the shares were down 4.4p at 37.25p.
A touch of anglo-periphery contagion
Adding to the sharp moves in Italian and Spanish banking stocks on Monday were also some rather sharpish slides in the UK banking sector — just ahead of the close of trade.
Not forgetting the Great British Krona versus the dollar…
Horta-Osório stops talking down Lloyds
He’s finally done it.
Antonio Horta-Osório has finally said something that’s made the Lloyds share price rise:
In truth there’s nothing surprising in Thursday’s long-awaited strategic review,
Snap news
Breaking pre-market news on Thursday,
- Lloyds Banking Group to cut £1.5bn of costs; says net interest margin for 2011 will be just above 2 per cent — statement.
- The secretary of state for culture,
What lurks beneath Italian banks…
… a swirling, shifting sea of over-the-counter trading.
On Monday, Zero Hedge pointed to recent trade data from Goldman’s dark pool platform — SigmaX — which appeared to show a pronounced fascination with Italy recently.
Clegg’s great UK banking give away
Our instinctive reaction to deputy prime minister Nick Clegg’s brainwave to give every British voter shares in the state-owned banks Lloyds Banking Group and RBS is that it’s an ill-thought out populist move that would be a logistical nightmare to execute.
Why Horta-Osório is talking down Lloyds [updated]
António Horta-Osório rarely misses an opportunity to talk down the prospects of Lloyds Banking Group.
He was at it again over the weekend, telling the FT that the turnaround at Lloyds could take up to five years:
UK house price gloom
Via Morgan Stanley, which thinks prices will fall 10 per cent on a two-year view and leave Lloyds with a negative equity headache.
More in the usual place. * Forecasts contingent on 150bps rate rise by end 2012.
Compare and contrast, RBS and Lloyds
Where Lloyds goes, RBS follows.
Not in terms of a socking great provision for PPI mis-selling (RBS says it can’t estimate the cost, but reckons it could be significant) but those increased Irish impairment charges.