Did the UK government push Lloyds Bank into acquiring HBOS?
While Gordon Brown has today issued a statement confirming that he has "no regrets at all" with regards to his intervention to speed up the takeover of HBOS by Lloyds bank many are concerned at Gordon Brown's role in the affair. This comes at a time when Lloyds Bank is looking at losses approaching £10 billion from the newly acquired HBOS operation. When the merger of the two operations was initially leaked to the press there had been speculation that the government had "leaned" on Lloyds bank to come to some arrangement with the HBOS management and shareholders. Whether this is true or not is very much open to speculation................
Despite initially looking as though it was a match made in heaven the ongoing economic crisis in the UK together with the delay in concluding the merger has left Lloyds Bank shareholders with a massive liability. Nobody close to the deal had expected HBOS to announce a loss in the region of £10 billion with a seemingly swift collapse in the company's corporate loan book. There is no doubt that Lloyds Bank has been "holed below the waterline" and there is a real danger that the company may need further funding assistance from the government in the short term.
Was Gordon Brown too "eager" to conclude the Lloyds Bank/HBOS merger?
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