any one got a feelling in their water how far LLoyds will go looking to to buy but just dont know when they are low enough

I agree with you, they would be able to raise the additional funds from shareholders. The Gov have bungled as usual by not letting the Ordy receive a dividend. Thus, income funds have been ditching their stock. If they reduce the pref percentage and allow a dividend on the Ordy, (some of which will be held by the Gov, the claw back will increase since the sp is more likely to rise above the clawback price. It is not as if Lloy were in the weaker positions of RBS and HBOS.

Bought a fw today @155p not sure if I have done the right thing but they seem cheap to me.

I hold a few of these and pay tax - so I'm in by choice and by force . . . . shouldn't the Taxpayer-Loan be paid back before dividends start to roll?
Surely that's only reasonable - if say they were borrowing from the Unlimited Bank of World . . .they'd be insisting that profits came to them first.

For 5-years, IMHO, the Banking Sector has been paying dividends it had no business to . . . for most of them were holding enormous losses, but they pretended these were valuable pieces of paper - I sure wish they offered to buy some of my "Nitefly" loan-stock, currently offering 40% interest after two years. Quipple-A-rated ( that's 5-A's) by the Up-Town-Girlie-Bank of Cleavage, whose Logo is a Stalion rampant, mounted by a semi naked lass with flowing skirt, in full cry, carrying aloft a flaming torch.

-Those ads I'd like to see.

LLOY at 1.55 - sounds cheap to me, but large Buyers are not convinced. They need dividends to pay their cash-calls and don't want to sell shares to raise the cash-equivalent. They may think the "preference shares" are a better yield......anyone?

If you'd like to listen to Eric Daniels, Lloyds TSB's CEO, telling interested parties what is going on, then dial

0800 032 9687

When asked for a 'Pass Code', press 49241546 and then #

One thing he mentions, is how he and his board at the bank are pushing to have the dividend payments unfrozen.

After listening to it, then I did think it was strange to read the following today:

Two 'Top Ten' Lloyds Investors shrug off dividend row

He obviously hasn't got these major investors on board with that idea then, has he?

Have I discovered a conspiracy?

'RBS': AFX News says "LONDON, Oct 20 (Reuters) - Standard Life Investments, one of the largest investors in Royal Bank of Scotland and HBOS, said on Monday it is likely to increase its stake in both banks as part of a UK government recapitalisation plan...."

And the result?

On this quite positive news, RBS are up 23.18% today to 84.5p

However, this news doesn't get a smidgin' of a mention in the HBOS News slot. Nothin'. Nil. Zilch.

And the result of that?

With no positve news to support the share price, HBOS slides 1.10p or 1.37% down to 78.9p

By the way, Lloyds TSB have agreed to buy HBOS for 0.605 x the LLOY price. Since the latter currently closed at 173.50, up 14.7p or 9.26% then this means that the agreed HBOS buying price is 173.5 x 0.605 = 104.9p or a massive 26p higher than today's HBOS closing price of 78.9p.

Hmmm? As I originally asked, 'Have I discovered some kind of a conspiracy?' then....

Q2. "Should this deal even go ahead?"

Q3. "HBOS seems so unpopular and unloved. Shouldn't it just be nationalised and the bits sold off?"

Q4. "If not Q3. above, since the value now works out at a much lower factor of 0.455 x LLOY share price, shouldn't the price for HBOS be re-negotiated once again?"

SNP government are going to block merger unless their questions are answered satisfactorily as stated by mr.salmond yesterday live on bbc tv.
in any event, the lloyds offer is derisory and i imagine most shareholders will decline it.....also the offer makes no sense as hbos is now fully recapitalised according to fsa.
they should split up hbos back to the way it was with halifax property stuff being split up.

Yep Scotty... more volatility to come !.

I still can't see this deal going ahead, the market most have doubts about it, because the hbos sp has been costantly below the offer price, and the lloy sp has been punished.

Just because the lloy Chairman if a friend of Gordon Brown shouldn't be a reason to keep going ahead with this unpopular takeover,. The long term benefit to lloy is not worth the added exposure to the UK economy, lloy are the bank that should have come out of this downturn the strongest, now they run the risk of being a victim.

SHAREHOLDERS MUST VOTE THIS DEAL DOWN.

similarly hbos should vote it down as they are now fully recapitalised.

also, lloyds seem to be struggling to even takeover hbos for a few billion.........remember that hbos were three times bigger than lloy. lloy also wrotedown a fair amount of money last week too.

so with 11.5 billion going to hbos, i cant see what benefit a couple of murray mints from lloy is going to help.

to sum up, i think everyone is against this apart from gb and lloyds heirarchy

Check out the link below, I think they put the case against a tie up very well.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/3229169/Fives-reasons-why-Lloyds-TSB-shareholders-should-be-wary-of-a-merger-with-HBOS.html

Amazing how the price has rallied near to the claw back price. I think this deal will still go through although Brown/Darling will have to concede on dividend payment issue and maybe the %age charge on the pref will be lowered. Gov. will be stuck with the lot otherwise and would find it hard to get shareholder agreement. Even the larger institutions would imho change their minds.

i thought gov wanted most of the shares as they will gain hugely out of this through long term.
i heard that prat darling on newsnight and he seemed adamant he wasnt changing from what was agreed.

they'll be nationalising oil and gas companies next

I've given up trying to understand or believe anything this Gov say as no doubt many others have. Best to switch off the TV when their faces appear and take stick to what you believe having tried to gleen the facts.

i gave up about 5 years ago

take a stick to them would be a better idea

geordieguy- it may even come to that in the end. Riots in the streets etc if things turn more ugly in the economy. They may think they are safe in their Ivory Towers but I bet a few are getting nervous. Idiotic short sighted greedy fools. Mind you the ones pulling the strings have their bolt holes ready no doubt.

Good news from Mandy, ditch HBOS
LONDON (SHARECAST) - Lord Mandelson has warned that Lloyds TSB and HBOS will not get their 17bn rescue package unless the planned merger goes ahead, increasing Government pressure on shareholders to vote in favour of the deal, writes the Telegraph.

The tie-up between Lloyds TSB and HBOS has been thrown into doubt by the steep fall in the share price of both banks this month. But Lord Mandelson, the new Secretary of State for Business, Enterprise and Regulatory Reform, said the 5.5bn for Lloyds TSB and 11.5bn for HBOS is conditional on the deal. "The recapitalisation that we've offered is based on the merger of the two banks," he said. "Recapitalisation is predicated on the merger going ahead.

With government pressure like that it should make shareholders more determined to vote against this deal. lloy need to announces that they are pulling out, and say they will have a rights issue to recapitalise. That way they can buy good assets on there terms, and there will be plenty of opportunities over the next 12 months.

I'm sure the market would positive with a rights issue, even in todays climate. Because unlike RBS, BB or HBOS who raised money because thay were in trouble, lloy would be raising the money to take advantage of weakness in the sector.

Fingers crossed..........

why cant they get a bond......norway got 35 billion in bonds i think.....not bad for population of 4.5 million people!

lloy down 4.3% to 164p and hbos down 13% to 63p. The conversion price for hbos should be nearer 98p, what are the market trying to tell us?

lloy ended down 3.6% to 165p and hbos 17% to 60p, the market is saying that lloy will either renegotiate downwards again, or call the whole thing off.

If lloy management want to survive this downturn they must call off this takeover now, that is what the market is shouting at them, and everyone else if they care to listen.