.

.

.

.

It should get back to 40p in the next couple of months, IMO

Happy Christmas to you all

Eddie

..Former Lloyds bosses to be sued over HBOS takeover

By James Quinn | Telegraph – 13 minutes ago
Sir Victor Blank and Eric Daniels, the former chairman and chief executive of Lloyds Banking Group (LSE: LLOY.L - news) , are to be sued in the US courts by American shareholders unhappy at the bank’s takeover of HBOS at the height of the credit crisis.

Claim forms have been lodged with the Southern District of New York (Frankfurt: A0DKRK - news) against the two former executives, along with the bank itself, by US-based shareholders.

The forms, copies of which have been seen by The Sunday Telegraph , accuse the bank’s board of making misleading statements about the quality of the transaction, even though HBOS was technically insolvent at the point of takeover.

The transaction, which was engineered just days after Lehman Brothers fell into administration, led to a collapse in Lloyds’ shares, falling from 279.75p on the day news of the deal leaked, to 108p a year later.

It also triggered the departures of Sir Victor Blank along with Lord Stevenson and Andy Hornby, HBOS’s chairman and chief executive respectively.

In the claim, Mr Daniels, who stood down as chief executive in February 2011, is noted as describing the deal as “fantastic” in September 2008, and speaking of the merged bank’s “robust capital position”.

But the claim notes that “unbeknownst to the public... beginning on October 1 2008, HBOS was insolvent”, receiving emergency liquidity assistance from the Bank of England, which peaked at £25.4bn on November (Stuttgart: A0Z24E - news) 13.

It goes on to quote Sir Mervyn King’s later comments that “without that assistance, [HBOS] would not have survived”.

The two men and the bank are accused of violating sections of the US Exchange Act (Taiwan OTC: 3492.TWO - news) , alleging that the “wrongful conduct” which ensued led to “false and/or misleading statements” being issued, to the detriment of shareholders.

The class action is being brought by three sets of solicitors on behalf of Albert Ross of Louisiana who owned 1,400 Lloyds American Depositary Receipts (ADRs) and is being used to lead the class.

Lloyds ADRs trade on the New York Stock Exchange, which is the reason the case has been filed in New York.

The claim form states that “the exact number of class members” is unknown, however, due to the highly liquid nature of Lloyds ADRs at the time of the takeover.

Sir Victor has always defended the deal. He told The Sunday Telegraph in June that enough due diligence was done on the transaction, there were no other options to prevent a banking collapse and the problem was the speed with which the economy went into recession, pulling down HBOS with it.

“What happened was very unforgiving and the losses came much faster than anyone anticipated,” he said.

Meanwhile, the British shareholder group, Lloyds Action Now (LAN), is moving a step closer to bringing its own set of legal proceedings through the British courts.

LAN is in discussions with a number of funding specialists.

Having previously intended to fund any legal action with shareholders’ funds, the 4,000-strong group is understood to have received at least one offer of funding.

The group has appointed solicitors Maguire Woods to fight its case and recently received an opinion from Jeremy Cousins QC and Johan du Toit which gave a 70pc-plus “prospect of success”.

“We now have QC’s opinion saying that the prospect of recovering substantial damages is very good,” a LAN spokesman said

High of 27.25p today so far. Looking for my 36p as a realistic New Year present!

£1 by Christmas

Which year :-)

LLOY has bounced off a Low caused in the main by their woeful bunch of Directors turning up with "sickies" (well one swallow may not make a Summer, but one ill Director is a Bad Omen, IMHO).
Whether he's recovered I don't know, but it's not exactly exciting times and what LLOY needs is stability. Also it needs a long-term progressive grip on their activities if ever profitability is to return.
The notion of £1 within 12 months is "most unlikely" IMHO.....unless the whole of Europe is off the hook, and suddenly Euro zone banks start lending to each other.

Greece is yet to default . . . just how soon will it be?

The News that Euro-banks have securred a fat wad of "billions" from Central Europe (printing press?) and then put it on deposit at nearly a fifth of the interest, shows they still don't do their sums very well. That is a route to disaster, so they must be doing it "collectively" because they fear some Outstanding loans will turn Bad. (Greece may be just one!).

That, possibility does not mean Europe's Banks are healthy and I suspect it must affect Lloyds as well.

However, LLOY is not quite a Euro-bank, so it shouldn't be party to their worst games . . . hence the bounce from near-on 20p. We might return to healthy 30's but without GOOD NEWS I can't see it reaching £1 - and "where" is that news to come from . . . . only the result of many years (Oh No!) of building Trust in a much-loved British Bank that caught a nasty virus when the visited GB who was selling-off duds at a penny-a-piece.
Will HBOS ever be worth the price? . . . frankly I doubt it, LLOY Shareholders were sold a Pup! . . . . but folks have short memories and I guess by 2014 many will have forgotten.....
I hold a few LLOY and I guess my av. is somewhere near that £1 - but I suspect many will have taken Profits if it ever got near.
IMHO, without a Dividend, it's difficult to value large Equities.

hangon--------the pup bought by LLOY, I sold for £11.58, still keep pinching myself. I do not hold any bank shares atm, if I was pushed I would go for HSBC. Good luck for that quid a share though.
2517

Not many strong competitors left in the world. lloyds has kept its infrastructure intact during the crises. It should benefit from minor recovery in the world which is started from the US and some of the emerging markets.

Situation has to improve, given the rise in population and gradual increase in demand.

Jan. 6 (Bloomberg) -- Lloyds Banking Group Plc, the U.K.’s largest mortgage lender, may post a loss for 2012 because of higher charges for bad loans, according to analysts at Barclays Capital.

Lloyds may set aside 5 billion pounds ($7.75 billion) of provisions on mortgages for the second half of 2011 through to the end of 2014 and post a net loss of 292 million pounds, as the U.K. suffers a “sharper downturn” and slow recovery, said Rohith Chandra-Rajan, an analyst at Barclays Capital, in a note to clients today. Royal Bank of Scotland Group Plc’s provisions for mortgages may be less than 1 billion pounds, Barclays Capital said.

hangon - £1 by Christmas is a meaningless, throwaway satirical line which I think most people would recognise as such. My apologies if you were misled. But it would be nice.........

Lloyds s/p 800 eurosplots by 3012. Hail to the great empire euroworld!!!!! One bagette= 4 decisplots. 1 decisplot = 1000 eurosplots. Get the picture???

no

LLoyda reduce its Euro exposure at 1.34.