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Lloyds shares tumble after update


Afro Droid

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Already!?

Umm...they've had a stake for ages. The only reason Lloyds took over HBOS and saved their skin was because the government agreed to throw some money into the deal (hence their 43% stake). And funnily enough it's writing down some more of HBOS's dodgy assets that caused their share slump today. The share price will pick up again in the next few weeks though.

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Hang on?

I thought Lloyds itself was doing OK but the Halifax/HBOS side had the loss - Which they must have known about & prepared for when they took over the bankrupt company?

How is this even news?

I think it was a bigger than expected loss, causing the fall.

And yeah, the Lloyds TSB side made a profit, just not enough to cover the extra loss.

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And if anyone can enlighten me as to why we don't just let them fold, presumably allowing an orderly liquidation of assets and debts, I'd be all ears!

Because, if you believe the government at least, it would have resulted in a complete failure of the banking system and would have triggered a run on most of the high street banks ala Northern Rock. RBS and HBOS would certainly have gone under and the general atmosphere of panic would have probably led the same happening to Lloyds and Barclays as well.

No banks means no mortgages, credit cards, loans or savings. As most businesses rely on at least some lending from banks then they would have gone under as well. This is actually happening anyway, but on a smaller scale, as the banks tighten up their belts.

The compensation schemes currently in place to give people back their savings back if a bank goes under wouldn't be able to compensate everyone in a massive banking failure like this either, so lots of people would lose their savings, investments etc. So the end result is probably becoming unemployed, having no savings and the government becoming bankrupt.

Have a look at Iceland now to get some idea of what it would have been like if the banks hadn't been bailed out.

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Because, if you believe the government at least, it would have resulted in a complete failure of the banking system and would have triggered a run on most of the high street banks ala Northern Rock. RBS and HBOS would certainly have gone under and the general atmosphere of panic would have probably led the same happening to Lloyds and Barclays as well.

No banks means no mortgages, credit cards, loans or savings. As most businesses rely on at least some lending from banks then they would have gone under as well. This is actually happening anyway, but on a smaller scale, as the banks tighten up their belts.

The compensation schemes currently in place to give people back their savings back if a bank goes under wouldn't be able to compensate everyone in a massive banking failure like this either, so lots of people would lose their savings, investments etc. So the end result is probably becoming unemployed, having no savings and the government becoming bankrupt.

Have a look at Iceland now to get some idea of what it would have been like if the banks hadn't been bailed out.

Excellent points. I must admit, I would have been personally completely screwed if they hadn't done this. No cash handy for food or tokens for the meter etc. My employer is also almost certainly dependant on credit, not to mention our government!

But not all of the banks would have failed. The smaller building societies and maybe one or two of the banks (like The Co-operative which is why I'm moving my humble pile there) don't rely on fractional reserve lending and didn't let their own lending standards slip during the boom. Of course there's no guarantee of their survival either but they're much better placed than the big boys. And, of course, they would see some spectacular growth in their business in the wake of a so-called financial collapse. How to get your cash out when the ATM networks are dead is another matter... but I think it would be surprising just how fast free market solutions would appear.

With the price of complete nationalisation estimated at 5 trillion, I wonder if all our government has done is buy us time while setting up an even bigger crisis in the near future, that of a run on Sterling and hyper-inflation in our time:

The bond bubble is an accident waiting to happen - Telegraph

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lloyds bastards now getting ready to give away 120m in bonuses. Guess we'll be taking the 10bn hit. Again.

Thing is, if it wasn't for Lloyds TSB being begged to take over HBOS, the bonuses aren't entirely unjustifiable. The Lloyds arm made a decent profit - why should the workers be penalised?

If anything, the Lloyds TSB arm deserve their bonuses for actually persuing a conservative strategy when everyone else was making stupid gambles.

Apparently part of the cause of the huge loss by the HBOS side was because Lloyds TSB applied their accounting standards (which were more conservative) to HBOS.

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Thing is, if it wasn't for Lloyds TSB being begged to take over HBOS, the bonuses aren't entirely unjustifiable. The Lloyds arm made a decent profit - why should the workers be penalised?.

I don't have a degree in economics, but posting unexpected losses of 10bn, then giving away 120 in bonuses doesn' t make the best financial sense to me. I work in the oil industry, most would agree an area that's as recession-proof as you can get (unless something really drastic happens), and we've been told there'll be no pay rises this year because of the expected down-turn. If everyone else in the country has had to tighten their belts because of these greedy cunts why so they get to continue reaping the rewards of complete failure? Admittedly Lloyds don't appear to be as band as most (though they've still been shit bank to me), they're still part of the murky, corrupt system that put us in this situation.

Apparently part of the cause of the huge loss by the HBOS side was because Lloyds TSB applied their accounting standards (which were more conservative) to HBOS.

Right. So the truth of the situation depends on how "creative" you are with your balance sheets? No wonder we're in the state we're in. I say again: Jail these bastards. It's someone's fault, but will they be punished? Will they fuck. Probably a cushty non-executive directorship for most, I imagine....

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I don't have a degree in economics, but posting unexpected losses of 10bn, then giving away 120 in bonuses doesn' t make the best financial sense to me. I work in the oil industry, most would agree an area that's as recession-proof as you can get (unless something really drastic happens), and we've been told there'll be no pay rises this year because of the expected down-turn. If everyone else in the country has had to tighten their belts because of these greedy cunts why so they get to continue reaping the rewards of complete failure? Admittedly Lloyds don't appear to be as band as most (though they've still been shit bank to me), they're still part of the murky, corrupt system that put us in this situation.

The problem is that the Lloyds TSB side of the operation seems to have actually been rather sensible and actually managed to make a profit while everyone else was losing a ridiculous amount of money. I'd been hearing for a long time that Lloyds were deliberately being risk-adverse while everyone else was over-reaching, and it seems to have been true.

Don't get me wrong, I'm completely against bonuses being paid to people who worked for the banks that failed (RBS, HBOS, Northern Rock et al) - but it does seem rather unfair not to pay the Lloyds TSB staff their agreed bonuses when they've done nothing wrong.

I suspect that the Lloyds Banking Group is now in an awkward situation - they could decide not to pay the bonuses, but if you worked for them and had an agreed bonus structure (and your side of the Group performed, just as you were getting rewarded for) - wouldn't you go rather apeshit at being denied your bonus simply because the Government wanted to avoid nationalising another bank?

As far as I can tell, Lloyds were pleaded with and begged (and given the exemption from the anti-competition laws) to take on HBOS. If anything, these people perhaps deserve bonuses for avoiding yet another nationalisation.

Right. So the truth of the situation depends on how "creative" you are with your balance sheets? No wonder we're in the state we're in. I say again: Jail these bastards. It's someone's fault, but will they be punished? Will they fuck. Probably a cushty non-executive directorship for most, I imagine....

Sadly, seems to be so. RBS and HBOS are definitely guilty of this, but they're not alone in the world. Only Lloyds TSB seem to have came up smelling of roses as a result of being honest and prudent - it's just a shame that the other banks couldn't see it the same way. But it's a shame that the Lloyds TSB side of things is being tarnished by the HBOS nonsense - people are seeing LLOYDS LOST BILLIONS and assuming that the whole PLC is bad - when in reality, it isn't.

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