Hard to believe today, but if the economic recovery continues then I believe it won’t be too long before we start to hear calls for Lloyds to be broken up due to the obscene profits it’s raking in.
It’s already started, ahead of schedule, with today’s half-yearly results:
Taxpayer-backed Lloyds Banking Group (LSE: LLOY.L – news) has kept up the momentum of the British banking recovery, unveiling first-half profits of £1.6bn.
The sum was twice the £800m figure predicted by analysts and represents a sharp bounce-back from the £4bn losses seen a year earlier.
The improvement was partly down to vastly reduced writedowns, with loan impairments coming in at under £6.6bn – less than half the £13.4bn it suffered in the same period last year.
Lloyds said it had seen strong trading against the backdrop of a stabilising economy – and it expects to deliver a strong medium-term performance as the recovery continues.
It said it has passed a “significant milestone”, with the toxic-loan legacy of its HBOS takeover beginning to fade and the bank “on track” to achieve its target of £2bn in synergies from the deal by 2011.
Disclosure: As detailed on Monevator (follow the links) I hold both Lloyds shares and Lloyds preference shares. Both have performed strongly recently, but the latter in particular have leapt ahead as credit concerns have faded.
(Source: Yahoo Finance)
