TV presenter Noel Edmonds took his legal battle with Lloyds Bank into the company’s AGM today. He believes he was the victim of fraud by former staff inside HBOS. That bank was taken over by Lloyds at the height of the financial crisis, and Mr Edmonds now wants compensation from them. At today’s meeting in…
Siobhan Kennedy
The plan had been for the Chancellor and the Lloyds bank boss Antonio Horta-Osorio to go on a walkabout at an apprenticeship training centre in Coventry. A mutual back-slapping moment to celebrate, almost a decade on, the return of the once beleaguered Lloyds into private ownership. But the general election happened and purdah rules knocked…
Ministers say the taxpayer will end up making a profit after bailing out the banks to the tune of £100bn. But are they telling us the whole story?
George Osborne’s headline figure is that the Lloyds share sale has “raised” £3.2bn. But how much of that is profit and has he factored in borrowing costs? FactCheck digs out its calculator.
Siobhan Kennedy
If anyone was in any doubt that the sale of Lloyds and RBS shares was politically motivated, Monday’s move by the Treasury was the proof that was needed.
At the top of Lloyds Towers the superlatives were being spread about liberally. Chairman Win Bischoff said that he was “immensely proud for having achieved profit”. Chief executive Eric Daniels was “delighted” that the government now has “optionality” on when to sell its 42 per cent stake, now that the share price was up above its 63p purchase price.
Faisal Islam blogs on why RBS aren’t saying how many of its bankers are getting bonuses of mroe than a million pounds, and why its bosses are playing today’s results low-key.
Gary Gibbon
The Chancellor’s statement to the Commons has calmed down the secret bank loans story, although Alistair Darling was summoned to speak by an increasingly active Speaker.
Following on from Bailout 1.0 (the banking system) and Bailout 2.0 (the economy), Bailout 3.0 focuses on the RBS and Lloyds, two banks in which the government has acquired a significant stake.
Jon Snow
As Lord Myners admits that 70 per cent of all share dealing is undertaken by computer systems that allow a trader to hold a share for a nanosecond before selling, Jon Snow asks: is it a good thing to have achieved the socialist ideal of a nationalised RBS bank?
Jon Snow
So it’s been reported that a bank WE own is being investigated by Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs for allegations of involvement in tax avoidance. This is probably the issue I have blogged about more than any other since Snowblog dawned – tax havens and tax avoidance, and the Channel Islands have never been far…
The biggest surprise today was not the extra £50bn of Mervyn’s magic money to be created for the purposes of fertilising the embryonic green shoots spotted by stock market traders. Forget Barclays’ remarkably strong results, and Lloyds’ further revelation of the devastation wrought upon its balance sheet by the purchase of HBoS.
Jon Snow
Yes, it’s official, we are in charge of Lloyds Banking Group, aka Lloyds TSB HBOS. In fact we didn’t know it. But we’ve had it since 13 October last year. According to a release that lands on our desks this morning, the Office of National Statistics has deemed that both RBS (which we already knew…