Lloyds Banking Group says it will cut 1,600 jobs in UK lending shake-up

September 14th, 2009 British Conservatives consider bank privatizationsLONDON — Britain's Conservative Party, which holds a hefty lead over the governing Labour Party in the opinion polls, is looking at ways of selling off the British government's equity stakes in Lloyds Banking Group PLC and Royal Bank of Scotland Group PLC to ordinary shareholders should it win the next general election, a spokesman for Conservatives said Monday. Hayden Allan, a party press officer, said the Conservative Treasury team was considering a privatization program similar to the British Gas campaign in the 1980s, when a large chunk of the company was sold off to individuals as opposed to financial institutions.

August 10th, 2009 Lloyds shares fall on capital raising speculationLONDON —Shares in part-nationalized British bank Lloyds PLC dropped 5 percent on Monday on speculation the lender is considering a multibillion pound share issue as part of a plan to reduce its reliance on the government. Lloyds agreed in March to put some 260 billion pounds ($433 billion) of bad loans into the government's asset protection scheme, an insurance program for toxic debt, but is now reported to be concerned about the 16 billion pounds worth of fees attached to the program.

August 7th, 2009 Downbeat RBS earns temper banking sector optimismLONDON — A downbeat report from the Royal Bank of Scotland PLC on Friday clouded a week of earnings updates that started with suggestions that the country's lenders were over the worst of the financial crisis — almost exactly two years after the credit squeeze took hold. While HSBC and Barclays shrugged off the near-collapse of the system to report substantial profits and fuel talk of financial recovery at the start of the week, losses and bad debt writedowns at part-nationalized RBS and Lloyds have tempered the optimism in London's financial district.

August 5th, 2009 Lloyds loses $5.3 billion in H1 on bad loansLONDON — Lloyds Banking Group PLC, part owned by the British government after a bailout, on Wednesday reported a loss of 3.1 billion pounds ($5.3 billion) for the first half of the year as bad loans rose at HBOS, the bank it took over in January. The merged bank's share price rose after management said the worst of the bad debts problem was over.

August 5th, 2009 Lloyds shares up on smaller than expected lossLONDON — Lloyds Banking Group PLC shares rose sharply Wednesday after the part-nationalized bank reported a smaller-than-expected loss for the first half of the year and declared its belief that the worst was over. Lloyds blamed loan losses at Halifax/Bank of Scotland, the company it acquired in a government-backed takeover in January, for record writedowns which resulted in a loss of 3.1 billion pounds ($5.3 billion).

July 16th, 2009 Lloyds Banking Group cutting 1,200 more jobsLONDON — Lloyds Banking Group announced Thursday it would cut another 1,200 jobs to reduce costs and rationalize operations after the government-backed merger of Lloyds TSB and Halifax/Bank of Scotland. Lloyds, whose biggest shareholder is the British government, said 650 permanent jobs would go by the first quarter of next year, 180 staff would move to new positions and 370 agency and contract staff would be cut in its group operations and insurance divisions.

June 30th, 2009 Lloyds Banking Group cutting 1,750 more jobsLONDON — Lloyds Banking Group PLC said Tuesday it expects to cut 1,750 jobs in its group operations and wholesale divisions over the next three years as it consolidates the merger of Lloyds TSB and Halifax/Bank of Scotland. The partly nationalized bank said 2,100 posts would be cut, but that would be partly offset by creating 350 new roles in the two divisions.

June 30th, 2009 Lloyds Banking Group cutting 1,800 more jobsLONDON — Lloyds Banking Group PLC said Tuesday that it expects to cut nearly 1,800 jobs in its group operations and wholesale divisions over the next three years as it consolidates the merger of Lloyds TSB and Halifax/Bank of Scotland. The partly nationalized bank said 2,100 posts would be affected, but that would be partly offset by creating 350 new roles in the two divisions.

June 30th, 2009 NEW DELHI - The banking sector, which hired 16,200 people in the first quarter this fiscal, remained the biggest job provider in the country during the period, an industry lobby survey said. The country's largest lender, State Bank of India, alone created 13,000 jobs, while Danalakshmi Bank and Andhra Bank recruited 1,300 and 900 people respectively, the survey by the Associated Chambers of Commerce and Industry (Assocham) said.

June 23rd, 2009 UK May mortgage lending weakest in 8 yearsLONDON — Net mortgage lending in the United Kingdom was 2.3 billion pounds ($3.7 billion) in May, the weakest monthly amount in eight years, the British Bankers Association said Tuesday. The report came as further evidence of sluggish lending activity in the U.K.

June 8th, 2009 Lloyds bank gets 87 pct takeup on share offerLONDON — Lloyds Banking Group PLC said Monday that it has placed 4 billion pounds ($6.35 billion) of shares which will enable it to make a partial repayment of government support. The auction maintained the government's stake in Lloyds at 43.4 percent of its ordinary shares.

May 8th, 2009 Lloyds Group loan impairments rise sharplyLONDON — Shares in Lloyds Banking Group PLC tumbled Thursday after it reported that impairments on loans rose significantly in the first quarter, when the economy fell deeper into recession. Investors were not reassured by Lloyds' insistence that the potential losses had already been accounted for or would be covered by the government's insurance program, and shares closed down 14.3 percent to 97 pence on the London Stock Exchange.

April 12th, 2009 LONDON - Carmaker Jaguar Land Rover (JLR) is in 'advanced talks' with British ministers, a banking syndicate and owner Tata Motors on a 800 million pound loan that could help save 15,000 jobs, a newspaper reported Sunday. The Sunday Times quoted unnamed sources as saying negotiations were at a delicate stage, and hinged on whether JLR could provide sufficient loan security to the government and a banking syndicate led by the Royal Bank of Scotland and Lloyds TSB.

February 27th, 2009 LONDON - Lloyds Banking Group Friday reported 2008 losses of 9.9 billion pounds ($14 billion) following its growth into a 'superbank' through the emergency takeover of Halifax Bank of Scotland (HBOS) last September. Lloyds core division made a pre-tax profit of 807 million pounds in 2008, but HBOS, Britain's biggest mortgage lender, had suffered losses of 9.9 billion pounds, the banking group said.

January 1st, 2009 NEW DELHI - Two more state-owned banks joined the banking community in cutting lending rates by 50 to 70 basis points. In a regulatory statement, State Bank of Travancore announced Friday that it had revised the benchmark prime lending rate (BPLR) from 13.25 percent to 12.75 percent with effect from Jan 1.