RSS feedLloyds
’Debt swaps: we can do this the easy way or…
… we can just not call your bonds like you thought we would.
This is the tactic that Santander and Lloyds have seemingly been taking, as they try to get bondholders to exchange subordinated debt for senior bonds that improve capital.
[Something for the weekend] An irrelevant bargain for Branson
When you’re short of money, the odd £747m always comes in useful, but it doesn’t go far these days. It’s enough to finance the UK state spending machine for about nine hours. The government had spent more than the proceeds from the sale of Northern Rock before it could read the reaction to it in Friday’s papers.
Snap news
Breaking pre-market news on Wednesday,
- Admiral says profits will be at the lower end of analyst estimates because of large personal injury claims — statement.
- Kesa Electricals sells Comet for just £2 — statement.
Basel and a widowed Lloyds balance sheet
Funny coincidences, Lloyds Banking Group edition.
Last night Bloomberg reported that Lloyds has ruled out a sale of its insurance arm Scottish Widows. A sale had been seen bullish for the bank, by disciplining its vast post-crisis balance sheet a bit more and allowing return on equity to drift into the high teens.
The O’Lloyds zombie, in context
Not too surprising to see Lloyds’ effort at kitchen-sinking Irish exposures in its Q1 results, with impairments up £500m more than guided to £1.14bn…
Even so, it’s a nice test case of how bad Irish property loan losses could conceivably get,
Getting one’s Vickers in a twist
Handy heat map sort of thing from Goldman’s analysts, on what Monday’s Independent Commission on Banking report (chair: Sir John Vickers) promises for UK lenders.
Click to enlarge:
Diamond Bob will no doubt be pleased to see Barclays scoring at number one (err…) but have a look at what could slip up Lloyds regarding restrictions on wholesale funding,
S&P: Japan quake “likely” to be costliest ever
Quick update from S&P on Friday:
Worldwide catastrophe losses in the first quarter of 2011 could set a new record, as losses from the Japanese earthquake and subsequent tsunamis are tallied. Insured losses from last month’s New Zealand earthquake are currently estimated at $10 billion,
Insurance in the ring of fire
How many years has Japan been preparing for the ‘big one’?
On Friday it hit — the 8.9 magnitude quake that hit off the coast of north-eastern Japan is the seventh-largest on record, and far outstrips the 1995 temblor in Kobe.
Dear Sir John
Which anarchist added this to the list of public responses sent to the UK’s Independent Banking Commission? (H/T to the FT’s Paul Davies):
While again emphasising that this is a personal view, I do believe that in the interests of competition,
Snap news
Breaking pre-market news on Tuesday,
- Simon Property Group not to make offer for Capital Shopping Centres — statement.
- Marks & Spencer trades well through Christmas period; UK like-for-likes sales up 2.8 per cent — statement.
HM Banks ad infinitum
Calling experts in placing shares — a lot of shares:
… Your Majesty needs you.
That’s a chart from the National Audit Office’s just-released report on British taxpayer exposure to UK banks rescued during the crisis.
Halifax UK house price fall is ‘off the scale’
Crash, bang and wallop.
Or, the sound of the UK house building sector on Thursday morning:
The thunderous thump comes on the back of Halifax’s monthly house price index, which revealed — in the words of Channel Four’s own Faisal Islam — a simply ‘off the scale’ monthly fall of 3.6 per cent in September.
And it’s goodbye from Eric
Hankies at the ready.
Eric Daniels is leaving Lloyds. As the bank said in a release on Monday:
Eric Daniels, Group Chief Executive of Lloyds Banking Group, has informed the Board of his intention to retire in a year’s time.
UK banks, sucking on the blood of depositors
Here’s a brilliant report from Bruce Packard at Seymour Pierce on Thursday, which expands in great detail on the rather hypocritical trend of banks scorning unsecured lending while simultaneously fighting over customer deposits — the cheapest form of unsecured borrowing for them.
Snap news
Breaking pre-market news on Wednesday,
- Lloyds posts £1.6bn profit in first half, impairments at £6.55bn – statement.
- RBS sells UK branches to Santander for £1.65bn — statement and statement.
Zen and the art of flogging UK banks
We live in a new era of Austerity Britain.
One must make cutbacks and maximise value where one can.
So, then. Not just when — but how– should the UK government sell off its stakes in Lloyds and RBS,
Mind the debt funding gap, banks
European banks and troubled commercial real estate: it’s not over until it’s over. And as a report from DTZ, the London-based property broker, argued on Monday — it’s really not over at all.
Indeed,
[Darling: Budget Highlights 2010] Reforming financial services — some details
FT Alphaville finally got its hands on a nice, fat hard-copy of the UK’s 2010 Budget on Wednesday, freshly couriered over from Westminster.
We were intrigued by this section of the Budget Report, on ‘reforming financial services’ (emphasis in the original):
[Darling: Budget Highlights 2010] Lending
Are you listening Mr Hester and Mr Daniels? From Reuters:
DARLING-HAVE AGREED THAT RBS AND LLOYDS WILL PROVIDE 94 BLN STG NEW BUSINESS LOANS OVER NEXT YR
Eric Daniels no longer the last man standing
Yep, the CEO of Lloyds, is going to waive his 2009 bonus of £2.33m.
Not that he had much choice in the matter after his opposite number at RBS, Stephen Hester, announced on Monday morning that he would forfeit an estimated £1.6m in bonus,
The Basel III sell-off continues
The early price action in the UK banks:
And in Europe
Welcome to the sub-marine crisis
On Thursday, AP Moller Maersk — the world’s top container shipping company — spooked shipping industry watchers when it reported deeper than expected losses of $706m for the nine months to September,