Lloyds investors' long wait may soon be over
22.05.12
Lloyds Banking Group’s battered investors may be nearing redemption. Before the financial crisis, the UK’s biggest mortgage lender was the epitome of a stolid, dividend-paying stock. Since 2008, when it agreed to rescue HBOS and wound up 40 percent state-owned, its shareholders have not received a single payout. But an end to the drought is in sight.
It may not look that way right now: the bank’s first quarter contained some unpleasant surprises. The gargantuan 3.2 billion pound provision Lloyds set aside last year to cover mis-selling of payment protection insurance policies had to be topped up with another 375 million pounds. And its attempt to offload 632 branches by 2014, as demanded by the European Commission, is foundering amid doubts that the erstwhile frontrunner, the Co-operative Group, will last the pace.
Source: Reuters Blogs (blog)