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

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.

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.