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Decision deadline for Lloyds shareholders -- Date: Thursday 10 Dec 2009
LONDON (ShareCast) - Lloyds Banking Group shareholders need to be quick if they want to take up their rights as part of the banks 13.5bn cash call. Its D-Day on Friday and the new shares will begin trading at the start of next week.
Hopes of a good take-up from the 2.8 million private investors are high in some quarters, encouraged by this weeks heavily oversubscribed $986m US bond exchange. Holders wanted to swap $2.7bn of existing securities for new enhanced capital notes (ECN), a new type of hybrid debt.
The part-nationalised lender said last month that investors had wanted to swap 12.51bn of existing debt for contingent capital when only 9bn was up for grabs.
Analysts at UBS think the shares could bounce strongly once the rump placement completes on 14 December, or possibly sooner.
They say the underlying margin and credit momentum is strong, so a moderate double-dip recession and/or more expensive debt refinancing would delay but not derail the return to a valuation based on the long-term fundamentals.
Even if this process takes five years and not the three the broker predicts the stock is still attractive, the broker thinks.
Shareholders can get 1.34 new shares for every 1 share held at 37p each. Someone with an average 740 shares will be eligible for 991 of the new ones at a cost of just under 367.
Lloyds wants the money to avoid being tied into the governments 260bn toxic asset protection scheme. The Treasury is taking up its rights as part of the issue, investing 5.7bn net of an underwriting fee, to keep its stake in Lloyds at 43%.
So, what to do?
Whenever a company decides to raise money via a rights issue shareholders have four choices. Each has its benefits, but the final decision will depend on what confidence an investor has in the business prospects and their own personal circumstances.
First option, and the most simple, is do nothing. Your rights have an intrinsic value, so if you cant afford to buy the new shares, dont fancy throwing good money after bad, or just cant be bothered, youll eventually get a cheque for the difference between the offer price (37p) and the share price when the whole process has finished.
Many investors will have become accidental shareholders in Lloyds, having acquired the shares through demutualisations of the Halifax, Cheltenham & Gloucester and Leeds Permanent building societies. A lot of them wont want to pump more cash into Lloyds, or any bank, following the recent market turmoil.
If youre feeling a little more energetic, but either dont want to or cant afford to buy more shares, the second option is to sell your rights. Lloyds will sell your nil-paid rights for you, or you can go through a broker. If you owned an average 740 shares and sold your rights at the current price, 19.75p, youd get about 146.
There's a third option if you want to avoid forking out any extra cash, but still want to take up some rights. Shareholders could sell enough of their nil-paid rights to fund the purchase of whatever rights they have left, a process known as "tail swallowing". Lloyds says it will help those who like the idea.
Finally, the brave investor might decide to take up their allocation.
All eligible shareholders will have received a provisional allotment letter letting them know exactly how many shares they own and what theyll be entitled to through the rights issue.
Not made up your mind yet?
Jonathan Jackson at broker Killik Capital thinks the shares will remain volatile in the short term, with potential upward pressure from the unwinding of short positions and the prospect of UK institutions upping their holdings in the stock to achieve an index weighting.
In the medium term, however, the shares remain a pure play on UK economic growth (on which we remain cautious) and the ability of management to extract better-than-expected synergies from the HBOS acquisition, he says.
Theres also the risk that banking sector returns may be capped by the regulator.
Charles Stanley doesnt think investors should take up their rights just to avoid dilution. They must believe that additional funds invested will earn a better return than if they were invested in an alternative stock.
The broker says Lloyds has a strong franchise which, if managed properly, is likely to be a powerful force on the UK high street.
However, the next couple of years are still likely to be difficult and of course the group is unlikely to pay a dividend until at least 2011. Our Hold recommendation on the stock remains and therefore we recommend that shareholders sell sufficient nil paid rights in order to take up the balance of their entitlement.
Lloyds investors expected to take up more than 90% of share issue
From the FT.com -- December 12 2009
Investors in Lloyds Banking Group are expected to have subscribed to or sold the rights to more than 90 per cent of the new shares issued through the bank's 13.5bn rights issue.
The share issue was launched two weeks ago and investors had until yesterday morning to trade their rights to buy the new shares in the market.
Someone close to the bank estimated that about 12.5bn of the 13.5bn of the new shares would be taken up, leaving a "rump" of about 1bn. The final overhang will not be known until the bank's registrars have conducted a formal count of the take up of the new shares this weekend.
In Lloyds' fundraising in June this year, some 13 per cent of the issue was not taken up by investors.
The registrar will announce the number of remaining shares on Monday. These will then be placed in the market by the underwriters on the rights issue, led by UBS and Bank of America Merrill Lynch.
The bank had expected strong demand for its rights issue, the largest fundraising yet to be launched. The rights to buy the new shares - or "nil-paid rights" - were trading at about 20p before the 11am deadline yesterday morning, compared with their issue price of 37p.
The rights issue is part of Lloyds' plan to raise 22.5bn to strengthen its balance sheet and allow it to escape the government's asset protection scheme. More than 99 per cent of the bank's shareholders voted in favour of the fundraising at the end of last month. The bank is also raising 9bn through a debt swap.
Investors were offered 1.34 new shares for each existing one they own at a price of 37p a share. This worked out at a 39 per cent discount to the so-called theoretical ex-rights price, which takes into account the dilutive effect of the issue on the bank's overall market capitalisation.
Shareholders who have not taken up their rights will have their entitlements sold by the bank on their behalf. Lloyds' shares fell 3.4 per cent, or 2p, to 56.2p yesterday
Lloyds rights issue sees more than 90% take-up - 12th December 2009
Lloyds Banking Group will tomorrow (Monday) claim success for its 13.5 billion cash call, with figures expected to show that more than 90 per cent of shares have been taken up.
That scale of buying from existing shareholders would compare well with the bank's cash-raising earlier this year, in which 13 per cent of the shares were left unsold and had to be placed on the market in a rump sell-off.
Bankers are confident that any rump of shares after this rights issue will be placed by the end of trading tomorrow.
Shares in Lloyds closed last week at 56p. Once adjusted for the effect of the new shares in issue and cash raised, this price is almost unchanged on their level immediately before the rights issue was announced.
The Government, which owns 43 per cent of Lloyds after last year's banking bailouts, has taken up its rights to new Lloyds shares in full and most City institutions are expected to have followed suit. But many small investors, burnt by the crash in value of shares in Lloyds and its HBOS subsidiary over the past two years, are thought to have ignored the rights offer or taken up only part of their entitlement.
Analysts have welcomed the apparent success of the cash call. Ian Gordon, banking analyst at broker Exane BNP, said: 'The pain and suffering of Lloyds shareholders could soon be over.'
A strong take-up will be particularly welcome for chief executive Eric Daniels, who has faced criticism for his decision to buy HBOS late last year, a move that has lumbered the group with billions of pounds of losses.
The issue, which closed at 11am on Friday, aimed to raise 13.5 billion by issuing about 36 billion new shares at 37p a share.
It was announced last month alongside an offer to exchange some debts for a new type of investment called contingent capital, or 'CoCos', which will convert to shares if the bank hits a fresh financial crisis. The extra capital has enabled Lloyds to remain outside the Government's insurance scheme for toxic assets, known as the Asset Protection Scheme.
Had Lloyds been forced to join this it would have had to issue the Government with extra shares, giving the Treasury majority ownership. As it is, the Treasury stake will remain at 43 per cent.
Royal Bank of Scotland, which is putting hundreds of billions of assets into the APS, will end up 84 per cent State-owned as a result.