Brussels may force Lloyds to surrender Halifax

kennyboy66_2

Graham_Devon wrote: »

Can they realistically sell them though to get our money back?

Tomorrow in one go - certainly not.

However, its diificult to argue that all the banks are not being allowed to rebuild their profits and reserves over the next few years (at the expense of savers and fat margins to borrowers).
Fattened up for a privatisation in 2 years I would say.

michaels

cough cough

avantra wrote: »

(while the Greek, Italian and French taking the Michael)

michaels

I'm sure they would see the Irish mistake as having asked the voters in the first place - silly unwashed proletariat obviously don't know what is good for them.

However there is a solution - just ask them again until they get the right answer..apply a little presure via 'menaces' (maybe rumours of reductions in transfer funds or farming subsidies) and a carrot (plumb job for prominent Irish person) and throw in a recession that is likely to make voters more 'grateful' to their (elected?) betters and eventually they will come up with the right answer - and there is a deadline as if things are not signed off before the UK general election then there might be another unwinable referendum to be faced.

Heyman wrote: »

Rather than sticking their nose in our business, they should work out how they can democratically continue after more than one country said no to their silly constitution!

michaels

But you hear a lot more about that than you do about the fact that the so called asset insurance scheme has taken most risk (and almost certainly a lot of losses) out of their accounts and handed to the taxpayer - not surprising they are now worth more than they were, unfortunately this accounting slight of hand doesn't mean anything other than tax payers moving from a position where they held the risks but also might benefit from any upside through equity gain to (when the banks have been sold) a position where the shareholders benefit from the upside and the taxpayers face the downside risk - why does it not surprise me that the current administration would do such a deal...

Not forgetting of course that all borrowers and savers (companies and individuals) are losing out from the high margins being earned by the banks - not much chance of a monopolies commission enquiry into excessive market concentration allowing the banks to earn excessive economic rent in the short term methinks.

So my predictions
NR without its non-performing assets to be sold to Tesco Bank next spring.

A partial sell off of Lloyds/HBOS possibly with a public offering or something else also before the election assuming this looks like being 'at a profit'

Shortly thereafter an announcement that 75% of all bank charges are to be refunded with people getting cheques about 6-8 weeks before the election date.

kennyboy66 wrote: »

RBS shares are now just above what the government paid for them and Lloyds shares are just below.

Funny how you don't hear people mention that much now.

abinanthanb

Even though I am not agreeing with EU poking its nose in UK's decision of merging the two banks, especially when EU contributed nothing when UK was/is going through the economical turmoil, the decision to split Halifax from Lloyds group is actually a good move. Somehow I feel that bringing too many entities under one umbrella is equal to putting all eggs in one basket.

kennyboy66_2

michaels wrote: »

But you hear a lot more about that than you do about the fact that the so called asset insurance scheme has taken most risk (and almost certainly a lot of losses) out of their accounts and handed to the taxpayer - not surprising they are now worth more than they were, unfortunately this accounting slight of hand doesn't mean anything other than tax payers moving from a position where they held the risks but also might benefit from any upside through equity gain to (when the banks have been sold) a position where the shareholders benefit from the upside and the taxpayers face the downside risk - why does it not surprise me that the current administration would do such a deal...
.

The slight problem with this argument is that Lloyds for example has agreed in principle to go into the scheme, has not actually done so.
The scheme is not free - the bank has to pay a hefty premium plus it bears the first portion of any losses on top of existing write downs and impairments charges already taken. They also lose some tax advantage.

It's possible that Lloyds will try and raise the money by other means. Its whether they can raise sufficient capital elsewhere.

As time goes on, banks probably have a much better idea of what likely losses will be.
Lloyds clearly didn't have the first clue when they took over HBOS

michaels wrote: »

Not forgetting of course that all borrowers and savers (companies and individuals) are losing out from the high margins being earned by the banks - not much chance of a monopolies commission enquiry into excessive market concentration allowing the banks to earn excessive economic rent in the short term methinks.

.

As I said - fattened up.

michaels

So just a free stoop loss option then...

kennyboy66 wrote: »

As time goes on, banks probably have a much better idea of what likely losses will be.
Lloyds clearly didn't have the first clue when they took over HBOS

Thrugelmir

CLAPTON wrote: »

I thought the proposal was to sell off Halifax which I'm sure people would buy

Rumour has it that the planned closure of the Cheltenham and Gloucester brand was reversed in order to sell it. As this this would reduce Lloyds monoplistic position in the domestic mortgage market. Another target for Tesco's ? Better than NR.

Also Scottish Widows may be sold off.