Lloyds shares drop 3% as worries about bad loans weigh

Lloyds TSB has been badly run for years. The bank only remained in business because of British taxpayers stumping up billions of pounds to keep the failed business from receivership. The management have helped themselves to ridiculously high bonus payments as reward for their incompetence whilst pushing up mortgage costs, bank fees and credit card interest charges. The net result is that taxpayers/customers have been conned twice by these crooks. It is an utter disgrace.

Lloyds taking over HBOS was the right thing to do at the time, it was good for Britian. Failure do this would have seen the collapse of HBOS. Lloyds was not in great need of any governmnet help prior to the buy out of HBOS. HBOS is the one with the debt. Naturally the bank has to make greater profits to pay back the goverment and reduce the debt. Long term it will be one of the UK strongest bank, within 6 years.

Kieth, I think you're spouting the same tired anti-bank slogans that characterise the average tabloid press reader.

I do not mean that a personal criticism, but simply as comment on how your post came across. Nor am I trying to say that it is justifiable to pay 7 figure bonuses to the people who run failing institutions that have been propped up by the tax payer

However to my mind Lloyds was one of the better run banks prior to the banking crisis. I suspect they would have weathered the storm very well, but blew it completely by throwing a large proportion of their share capital and entire reserves on the purchase of a bankrupt institution.

I still haven't quite got my head round what was going on in little Erics mind when he bailed out Gordon Brown by taking over HBOS, but I can tell you that in doing so he dumped his shareholders in a large pile of (Gordon)Brown stuff.

These were, in the majority of cases, not rich people, but ordinary savers who were hoping for a modest income from their savings and a pension in their retirement .

Suggesting that HBOS should simply have been allowed to fail is justifiable, but would certainly have cost the taxpayers far more than the current solution, which was bought more at the expense of the Lloyds shareholders than the taxpayer.

For someone who subscribes to a capitalist democracy to suggest that banks should no longer be allowed to make a profit is rank stupidity.

If you dont like paying for the services offered by banks, then try and find cheaper alternatives. Personally I dont find anything disgraceful about having to pay to borrow money for a mortgage or buy consumables on a credit card.

Bill, shareholders wanted Lloyds TSB to do what was good for them, not 'for Britain'. A PLC is not a charitable or patriotic campaign.

Billions in value has been flushed down the drain in pursuit of 'greatness'. The owners would rather have cash in hand and not be beholden to the whims of politicians, especially when that also entails showering gold on their employees and starving small businesses of finance.

Forgive me if I am incorrect but Lloyds, prior to taking over HBOS, was a relatively successful domestic banking operation. They would not have needed to go cap in hand to the Government were it not for the HBOS excesses. It is true that the Government now holds 40% of the equity and I am certain that when the Government decide to sell their investment (for that is exactly what it is) there will be a large profit but the taxpayers will never see it that way!

I agree with you Tom, it was an investment. You could have left off the last 2 words of your post and that would be more accurate.

If the Govt stops meddling with our banks Lloyds will generate a handsome return for the taxpayer. Looking further ahaed the acquisition will make it a colossus and will no doubt provoke shrieks of horror from Brussels not to mention some of its smug UK competitors such as Standard Chartered who used their close labour ties at the height of the crisis to do what they could to screw Lloyds and for that matter RBS and slow the rate of recovery. Lloyds would not have acquired HBOS if it did not make long term strategic sense no matter what force the Govt brought to bare at the time. If I was running one of the smug banks I would be very afraid of a Lloyds Banking Group in rude health.

In agree with some of the above, LBG will generate a good profit in the future, i suspect we will see the return of dividends in 2012??. I do agree Lloyds shareholders have suffered badly in the value of their shares, however if they can hold onto them , there should be a gain in later years. For HBOS there will never be such redemption, that money is lost. Bonus'es are always a difficult topic but you have to pay the people who are generating wealth for the bank, other wise you lose them and the revenue goes with it. I agree there are perhaps some instances on the lloyds board where payment should be withheld and be based on future growth. e.g. no bonus until the share price is at least £2.00 and no debt to the government, there should be some strict ties to getting a bonus not for just doing nothing.

Keith Simmonds, I'm all for people having their say but when writing on public forums you may wish to get your facts straight.

Until HBOS sunk Lloyds didn't need any money as they didn't have an operation highly leveraged on overseas mortgage debt.

Can we pay attention when bashing bankers please - especially if you're going down the line of criticising people for their errors.

Incidentally I don't work or have share interest in Lloyds but am getting fed up with the same staid old remarks - how about some ideas for a change?

The government holding bank shares... doesn;t that go against them not meddling in the Big Society... I thought they were giving power back to the people... (so sell the public shares back to the public that want them!!)

The senior management at Lloyds TSB are a bunch of losers. They thought that by dishing out loans and overdrafts with inflated property valuations as security they could not go wrong. So when the chance arose to get HBOS on the cheap the opportunity was irresistible. Pity that HBOS was an even greater basket case than Lloyds TSB. Still that did not stop the bonus payments for failure being handed out courtesy of the taxpayer. Perhaps they are not such losers after all: Trebles all round!!!

The are no concerns about bad debts, the share price was walked down by the prop desks to facillitate client orders. Normal market practice.

Let's face facts: the banks are managed by the scum of the earth. They are such a bunch of cowards they hide behind the British Bankers Association.

It has all been said, but you can't blame Lloyds TSB shareholders for feeling bitter - they bought into a low risk UK based bank and found themselves bailing out HBOS. In the long run it probably will pay off, but many of the shareholders were/are elderly and relatively poorly off and were relying on the dividend for extra income - they may never live to see the good times again and have lost both capital value (for the moment) and income. I can't help feeling there is something very improper about the whole transaction - but then when politicians are involved what can one expect. The government could have just bailed out HBOS as they did Northern Rock.

Keith, take the blinkers off and the record you are playing is scratched and keeps going over the same track time and again.

Until the HBoS takeover, Llyods was in rude health.

Were it not, the govt bailout of Lloyds would have been larger, even greater than the RBS, with near 100% taxpayer ownership.

The skidmark got Lloyds to save him from another, but far greater, disaster than Northern Rock was, and HBoS was far, far bigger than Northern Rock, and many more borrowers.

The skidmark cared not for the investors, just as he didn't care for the pensioners he was robbing, which robbery continues today under the coalition, but there are not plans to compensate the robbed.

Appropriate punishment should be prison, not just for the expenses he stole, but financial fraud, and he should be joined by Cooper/Balls, in fact the entire cabinet, and the Bliars.

The security to Bliar and Brown should be withdrawn.

Reflect on this, the aircraft carriers ordered, with a poison pill, was deliberate, so that the skidmark's constituency would keep it's ship yard. How is that for gerrymandering?

In the FT yesterday it was stated that 50 % of American homeowners have no equity in the houses they live in. Lloyds' announcement talks about loans made in Ireland needing to be written off and falling UK house prices.

Does anyone know what the current level of negative equity is in the UK residential market and how it will grow if UK house prices continue to fall.

I am looking to buy a house for my son to live in. Using ZOOPLA you can see house prices on properties falling in chunky amounts month by month. How long before the UK housing market reaches a level that Lloyds and the other lenders hit the writedown trail again and have to call for yet more capital from shareholders.i.e the UK taxpayer.

Joe Stalin- you are right with your comments at 1351- this is being talked down and the hedge funds are are happy to continue playing this up down game. It will take the govt. share volume to fall by one method or another- or perhaps a buy back by LLoyds to change this situation.There is too much money potentially involved, when this is unleashed, someone will be sitting with a large pile when the music stops. In the meantime the trading volumes will continue to swing higher and lower, the trading volumes still remain relatively high as driven by the market / and the political daily utterances. The longer term shareholder/ Investor is not a consideration-- it is the short termer in the driving seat. ( and they even now continues to cream off their full share. It is not the Banks we should be worried about.