Lloyds

Lloyds Banking Group wants to raise £20 billion ($32 billion) in a move to fund the sale of its 600 branches, according to the Sunday Times reports.

Almost owned by the government Lloyds needs more cash to address a funding gap at the branches, the paper reported.

Citigroup, Credit Suisse, JPMorgan Chase, Rothschild and UBS are all hoping to win the deal to advise on the sale of the branches but have been told they must offer a loan of between 15 and 20 billion pounds if they want to pick up the business, according to the Sunday Times.
 

UK largest retail bank and mortgage lender Lloyds reported this week that its losses reduced in 2009 even though it was hit by $37 billion in soared loans, mostly assets inherited from rival HBOS.

The bank says it sees improvements this year with impairments continuing to reduce at the rate it saw between the first and second half of 2009. It means that bad debts will drop to about 15 billion pounds this year.

Lloyds Banking Group is selling its 70% stake in esure to the online insurer's founder and chairman Peter Wood for around £185 million in cash. Wood founded esure, that offers home, motor, travel and pet insurance, in 2000 as a joint venture in association with Halifax after handing over control of DirectLine to the Royal Bank of Scotland.

Lloyds purchased the insurer last year when it took over failing parent Hbos.

Largest UK banks Lloyds and Royal Bank of Scotland reported their plans to lay off more staff this year. RBS announced that it is laying off 221 techies at its Dublin Technology Centre. The Dublin center is to shut later this year with the loss of 196 jobs and 25 posts in Belfast will also go.

RBS promised that it would offer staff redeployment where possible and try and keep compulsory redundancies to a minimum.

Lloyds also announced it is laying off 585 people as a result of the closure of its personal loan centers.

Monday, Britain's largest retail lender, Lloyds Banking Group announced it got over 95% take-ups for its record £13.5 billion rights issue, underlining a turbulent few months for the bank.

As Lloyds stated Monday, around 95.3% of new shares offered were taken up by investors.

The rights issue had been priced at £37 per share, with investors being offered 1.34 shares for every existing share held. That compares with Friday's close at £56.2.

 EU Competition Commissioner Neelie Kroes stated on Thursday that the Royal Bank of Scotland became risky well before the crisis burst out as it grew so bid that it was "simply too big to operate and supervise."

Kroes said banks' ballooning balance sheets should have set off investor's alarm bells and that she was now trying to "build up solid banks by working with them to face certain realities."

As Michael Geoghegan, HSBC Chief Executive, said in an interview with the Financial Times, he is wary about "growing too fast" as he fears a second economic downturn could force the bank to make write-downs.

Geoghegan has a firm belief economic recovery would look like W-shaped rather than V-shaped.

 So, he’s sure "we have to be very careful we don't grow the balance sheet so far before the recovery has come, only to write it back into the impairment line later on. I'm cautious about growing too fast."