Santander Buy 74.64 74.02 - 76.00 Reiterates

Lloyds receives $900 million bids for Australian operations - WSJ

LONDON | Tue Aug 13, 2013 10:13am BST
(Reuters) - Britain's Lloyds Banking Group (LLOY.L) has received indicative bids for its Australian asset finance and commercial lending units that value them at more than 1 billion Australian dollars (£590 million), the Wall Street Journal reported late on Monday.

The part-nationalised bank is preparing to exit the Australian market as part of a turnaround plan to sell non-core assets and focus on lending to British households and businesses.

The British government is also preparing to sell its 39-percent stake in the country's largest retail bank.

3 year high @77.21.

Lloyds readies sale of German insurer - source

LONDON | Mon Aug 19, 2013 12:09pm BST
(Reuters) - Lloyds Banking Group is readying a sale of its German life insurance business, a source with knowledge of the matter said, as the British state-backed bank exits overseas markets to focus on lending at home.

Lloyds could raise around 400 million euros ($533 million)from the sale of Heidelberger Leben, the source said, with German reinsurer Hannover Re tipped as the most likely buyer.

The government is preparing to start selling its 39 percent stake in Lloyds, acquired as part of a bailout during the 2008 financial crisis, after the shares surged above its breakeven price of 61 pence.

readying? Is that one in our Oxford Dictionary.

ED: Are yes just found it.

Maybe "Ah, yes" might get OED approval

Sale of Heidelberger Leben

Lloyds Banking Group plc ("the Group") announces that it has signed an agreement to sell its German life insurance business Heidelberger Lebensversicherung AG ("Heidelberger Leben" or "the business") to a joint venture company owned by Cinven Partners LLP and Hannover Rück SE ("the buyer"), for a cash consideration of around €300 million, or approximately £250 million at current exchange rates.

Sale of Portfolio of Leveraged Loans

Lloyds Banking Group plc ("the Group") announces today that it has agreed the sale of a portfolio of leveraged loans ("the Portfolio") to ELQ Investors II Limited, a wholly owned subsidiary of Goldman Sachs Group, Inc., for a cash consideration of £254 million, with a further £2 million payable within 6 months if certain financial conditions are met. The transaction is part of the Group's continued non-core asset reduction strategy.

The Portfolio, which has gross assets of £283 million, predominantly comprises UK based assets in a range of sectors including manufacturing and retail. The Portfolio generated profits of £11 million in the year to 31 December 2012.

The transaction will result in a small core tier 1 increase for the Group. The sale proceeds will be used for general corporate purposes.

The transaction is expected to complete by the end of September 2013.

I assume it's a bit of a technical glitch, but the LLOY price on Selftrade is currently showing as 7000p and my holding is showing in the £m's in profit, which is rather nice!

Advice: Press the sell button.. quick!

I only managed 6999.5p.

I thought it only fair to wait for the government to sell their holding first. That should pay off our national debt for a while!

Morgan Stanley Overweight 72.65 72.63 93.00 100.00 Reiterates

Near 4 year high @77.90 78.69p

Intention to Dispose of c. 6% Lloyds Banking Group

Disposal of approx 6% of Lloyds Banking Group

Further to its announcement on 16 September 2013, UKFI announces the successful completion of the disposal of part of HM Treasury's shareholding in Lloyds Banking Group plc (the "Company"). The disposal was effected by way of a Placing (the "Placing") of shares (the "Placing Shares") by way of an accelerated bookbuilding process to institutional investors.

In summary, following settlement of the Placing which will take place on 20 September 2013:

· The shareholding of HM Treasury will be reduced from 27,608,563,642 ordinary shares, representing approximately 38.7% of the ordinary share capital of the Company, to 23,326,529,533 ordinary shares, representing approximately 32.7% of the ordinary share capital.

· Accordingly, the overall size of HM Treasury's shareholding will be reduced by approximately 15.5%.

· The Placing Price was 75.00 pence per share. As a result, the proceeds from the sale of the Placing Shares will be £3,211,525,582.

· BofA Merrill Lynch, J.P. Morgan Cazenove (who have also been acting as UKFI's privatisation strategy adviser) and UBS Investment Bank acted as Joint Bookrunners in connection with the Placing.

· UKFI and HM Treasury have undertaken to the Joint Bookrunners not to sell further shares in the Company for a period of 90 calendar days following the completion of the Placing without the prior written consent of a majority (by participation) of the Joint Bookrunners.

· Lazard & Co., Limited acted as capital markets adviser. Slaughter and May acted as Seller's Legal Counsel to UKFI in respect of English law.

Numis Add 75.73 77.36 - 85.00 Reiterates

Investec Sell 75.73 77.36 65.00 65.00 Retains

Espirito Santo Execution Noble Sell 75.73 77.36 59.00 59.00 Reiterates

I can't see why any broker would see the sale of HMG stake as a negative for the stock! But, what do I know?!!! Still holding and happily in profit, with expectations of a slow & steady increase in the sp. I'm firmly in the '85p' camp.

Bring on the divi next year!

I'm quite happy to keep holding - I'm now 40% up, having at one time as good as written the investment off.

Note from Cenkos:
"Lloyds (LLOY LN, mkt cap £55bn, 77p, Sell) – UKFI has placed 6% of the government’s stake at 75p for total proceeds of £3.2bn; a 90-day lockup period has been declared, but this could be rescinded if a majority (by participation) of the three joint bookrunners decide to place more shares – i.e. no lockup, really.

Should this be a trigger to buy some more LLOY? We don’t think so – at 75p, we’ve got LLOY on 1.3x price/tangible book for 2014E, with a forecast ROE of 3% in 2014 and 4% in 2015. Compare this with, say, HSBC (HSBA LN, mkt cap £131bn, 703p, Buy) on 1.2x 2014E price/tangible book, with forecast 2014E ROE of 11%. HSBC offers much stronger profitability at a lower multiple – thus our Buy.

For LLOY, we should note that our forecast methodology probably differs from those of other analysts, because our models are derived from the statutory accounts, not the adjusted management numbers. The HBOS acquisition was a long time ago, and we think that LLOY’s accounting/reporting should move on. The main adjustments that we make to the statutory accounts are for fair value changes, insurance volatility and one-off disposal gains – items like PPI charges, restructuring charges, and bank levy stay in our earnings numbers. An example of the difference this can make is that whilst LLOY declared £2.9bn of underlying profit in 1H13, we calculated a small adjusted loss before tax of £75m for 1H13 from the statutory accounts – which fits better with the small decline in reported tangible book value per share, from 54.9p (revised to 51.9p) at end-2012 to 54.6p at end-1H13.

Our main point is that whilst LLOY have strengthened considerably since the depths of 2009 (particularly in terms of capital strength), once LLOY move away from core/non-core management accounting, it will become clearer that the market’s expectation of profitability at LLOY is much higher than what it will be able to deliver. Our fundamental ROIC valuation model indicates that at the current share price, the market implicitly expects that LLOY will generate a long-term, sustainable ROIC of circa 18% - 10% higher than its WACC – whereas we are forecasting that LLOY will generate ROICs that are circa 4% below WACC in 2014-15. Scope for disappointment, we say."