Lloyds results emphasise HBOS' bad credit quality

MORNINGSTAR VIEW: Lloyds' results revealed some cost improvements but we still don't expect it to be profitable in 2010

Erin Davis | 04-03-10 | E-mail Article

Lloyds Banking Group reported an underlying loss before tax of £6.3 billion for 2009, highlighting that it is still struggling with its acquisition of the deeply troubled HBOS. On a statutory basis, which includes a £11 billion negative goodwill credit, Lloyds earned a profit before tax of £1.0 billion. We are leaving Lloyds unrated for now.

Lloyds' results emphasise how bad HBOS' credit quality was, both in comparison to Lloyds and to initial estimates. During the past two years, the combined businesses have taken £39 billion of provisions for loan losses on their approximately £650 billion average combined loan book, or 6% of loans, compared to about 3.7% at the stand-alone Lloyds. And more are yet to come--Lloyds estimates that it will make another £12 billion of losses on HBOS' loans in 2010.

We see some signs of progress in Lloyds' results, however. Costs were down about 5% in 2009 as Lloyds seized cost synergies and impairment charges appear to have peaked in 2009. Lloyds' biggest remaining problem may be its exposure to Ireland through HBOS' operations there. Customer deposits there fell 15% as customers moved their deposits to government-guaranteed accounts at competitors, at the same time that impairment charges increased 460% to nearly 12% of Irish loans. Despite Lloyds' cost improvements, we don't expect the bank to be profitable in 2010.

Read our full analysis here.

Erin Davis is a Morningstar equity analyst.

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