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

Its a buyers market spitfire43 and depends whether the price is right. Subject to price the deal may also turn out to be all share. Government will not want egg on their face again. However, this is mere speculation and things may not be as bad as painted in some of the press. I hold lloy which have one of the better managements.

Arse sold out at 304 and they have shot up to 318 1 minute later!

I am not surprised the market likes it. Lloyds could do a good deal here. The Northern Rock experience obviously put a squib up the Governments backside. Hope they can stop Brown from poking his nose in.

I'm sure that if lloy drive a hard deal, it will be a good profitable fit for the future, with plenty of cost savings where they overlap.

I would expect a dividend cut though at some time, as this would provide a very good excuse to cut. And it has been the dividend that had enticed me to buy, maybe I would just have to be content with long term growth.

I can't imagine this deal not being done now, can you imagine what would happen if lloy walked away. I wouldn't like to guess at the fallout.

Agree with you spitfire43 as deal would give good excuse to rebase the dividend but, that could prove worthwhile over the longer term. lloy are in a strong bargaining position and Brown would have kittens if they walked away. Lloy know the government are on the back foot. Amazing how times have changed when one considers that the Abbey/ LLoyds tie up was turned down by the same government in 2001.

looks to be 232p all share deal. Official announcement tomorrow.

As I have no idea what this will do to lloy sp, I have cancelled my buy order at 260p and await developments.

HBOS have over 7.0bn in ALT-A mortgages, I hope lloy have received some guarantees from the Government.

Lloy have a pretty shrewd management imho and I think this could turn out to be the deal of a lifetime for the management. Unfortunately the pain is going to come with redundancies with probably some job losses at lloyds as well. Company's patience has been rewarded and has taken the opportunity of market uncertainty about HBOS liabilities. The Lloy management know the score and I suspect HBOS has been handed to them on a plate. It will take time for the market to settle with short term speculation of if and buts, but, if you are prepared to hold I think Lloyds will come out of this as one of the winners.

I said last night that I had cancelled my buy order at 260p which I did, but I did replace it with another order at 235p. A little optomistic but you never know.
I do believe lloy have picked up a great bargain which will be a great profit driver in the future, and I would think that banks like RBS must be kicking themselves that they are unable to take advantage as well.

Im sure we will see plenty of nervous days ahead before things settle down, so should be able to take advantage, and carefully build a worthwhile holding.

Hi Spitfire 43 ................

I was just thinking about you when the sp zoomed down to your original price ........ wondering what your move might be.

Best of luck
Amar

Hi amardev

It is over 10% down at the moment, I just couldn't resist it and have made a modest purchase at 251p

Could be a bouncy ride for a time, but I do like a good rollercoaster.

Surely the key to lloy succeeding with this is the govt guarantee of the near 200 billion shortfall that brought HBOS to its knees ,no doubt the default insurance of hbos loans is US AIG , interesting times!! I cant see that the smaller lloy cd take over hbos without the guarantee which was declined in the case of northern rock. Am I missing something here folks? Meanwhile the sp of rbs who, according to ft Lex Column today has a funding shortfall of a mere 150 + billion, is tanking, or should I say being "shredded"

Incorrect. RBS down 2% Barc 5% and LLOY 10% atm

This could easily drop to below 2 in the next few days.....the bottom line is that investors...everybody likes the deal but now the time to pay for this huge takeover has come which is a bit like a big placing....you have to have funds; so the sp might suffer in the short term !.

Money ?

They are paying for it in shares not money.

12% down now, if hedge funds have turned there attention to lloy, I wonder how low they would go before it would scupper the hbos deal.

We will never know what the Government have guaranteed to lloy, but I have always thought that there must be one.

God....it's the same thing Dil, one way or another....I must say that funds permitting I might take the plunge and buy some if this drops below 2, but caution is required....got my fingers burned on so many stocks lately that I must proceed with caution !.

Maybe the HBOS shareholders could reject the offer and then table a bailout offer for Lloyds.... LOL.

Strawbs.

No its not required field ... LLOY have to stump up uck all but if it were a cash deal they or the shareholders would have to find 12 billion quid .... thats not the same at all in my books.

You cannot have something for nothing in a capitalist society !, the sp will one way or another be diluted......from 2 shares there will only be one !.