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

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.

I agree if LLOY go ahead with this deal they will end up as a nationalised bank which is of course exactly what the labour party have been planning all along since they took Northern Rock.

Unfortunately looking at sp movements today and yesterday, it looks like the market is accepting that the deal will go ahead. It always was really, with major institutions having shares in both hbos and lloy.

I just hope the markets can get a little carried away with the lloy sp, so I can exit at decent price.

There has been a recent Sandy Chen update on the merged entity but have lost it, looking at 2.00 in 2009 I seem to remember

I remember Sandy Chen was positive with the takeover on 18th September and had a buy note and target price of 340p for lloy and 232p for hbos. Since then he issued a buy note and price target of 125p for hbos yesterday, but I can't find todays lloy update.

We will have to wait before shareholders see the documentation in November but, imho we will see additional concessions otherwise the sp will not stay above the clawback price.

The sp between the two would still indicate a rebased rate of 0.4 shares at the moment, or it could be some ground given on dividend payments. I understand now why HSBC were only willing to takeover hbos for free.

Hve just found some of todays text from Sandy Chen, see below.

Sandy Chen, an analyst at Panmure Gordon, said, at current share prices, Lloyds would be buying about 20bn of shareholder equity for less than 5bn, resulting in 15bn of negative goodwill.

Under accounting rules, this would need to be recognised immediately on the newly created banks income statement and allow further writedowns to be taken.

In our opinion, what this would represent immediately is effectively 15bn of post-tax capacity to recognise negative fair value adjustments, said Mr Chen.

From a rough perspective, we think this negative goodwill would enable Lloyds HBOS to immediately address a substantial portion of the writedown issues in the HBOS toxic assets and mortgage portfolios, he added.

Mr Chen's view does not change anything the proposed merger is a bail out of HBOS by LLOY. It is quite clear that HBOS cannot survive without either LLOY taking them over or HMG will have to repeat the NRK exercise but on a vastly bigger scale which would probably be unacceptable to voters.

Mr Chen is talking about creative accounting using the Inland Revenue (us the voters) to ultimately pick up the tab.

As a LLOY shareholder I object strongly to this proposed deal, if the directors of LLOY had my and other shareholders interests at heart then they would wait for HBOS to be dismantled and then offer to buy some of the profitable parts of their business and not try to join a "drowniing man".

100% agree Halifax, I couldn't have put it better myself.

Lloyds small shareholders are being shafted big time.