• 10 Nov 2009 at 4:23 PM

Bad Day For British Banks

By John Shazar

London Is Fading.jpgThe City is not a happy place today: The U.K.’s two biggest banks both reported lower earnings thanks to the credit crisis, while Lloyds Banking Group announced a new round of job cuts.
First, Barclays and HSBC. The former said its third-quarter profit fell by half. Worse, its profit was actually lower than its write-downs and impairment charges, which doubled to £1.4 billion.
The latter was a little bit more coy, but the news was worse. HSBC said its third-quarter performance was lower than a year earlier, but didn’t specify. It did say it took a US$3.5 billion hit on its own debt; without it, the bank would be doing better than it did in the third quarter last year. But it isn’t.


And those are the strong banks. Lloyds, which last week took another government handout to stay afloat, announced that it would can 5,000 more people to save money. Slightly more than half of the layoffs will come from the bank’s permanent workforce, the others being kicked to the curb are temps.
Most of the cuts are in Lloyds group operations department, with its insurance and retail mortgage businesses losing about 1,000 employees apiece.
Souring Loans Hit U.K. Bank Results [WSJ]
Lloyds to cut another 5,000 jobs [MarketWatch]

Comments (12)

  1. 1
    Posted by guest | November 10, 2009 at 5:37 PM

    15 minutes before the first comment. That might even break Greg’s record.

  2. 2
    Posted by Tax Chick | November 10, 2009 at 5:48 PM

    @1 – By my clock, it was one hour and 15 minutes. But maybe you didn’t change your clock for daylight savings.

  3. 3
    Posted by guest | November 10, 2009 at 5:50 PM

    Didn’t Barclays say that God was hard at work for for their cause in the City?
    WTF happened? Did He fall down on the job?
    BaaaHaaaHaaa to Barclays, HSBC and Lloyds.
    The Guy from Delaware

  4. 4
    Posted by Tax Chick | November 10, 2009 at 5:53 PM

    @TGFD – started drinking early I see.

  5. 5
    Posted by guest | November 10, 2009 at 5:58 PM

    Barclays, HSBC and Lloyds…
    Keep on paying those outsized bonuses boys. We wouldn’t want you to lose all that top-notch talent now. Would we?
    Those results indicate that you certainly seem to be getting your money’s worth.
    Keep up the good work. God is on your side.
    The Guy from Delaware
    Again

  6. 6
    Posted by guest | November 10, 2009 at 6:03 PM

    TaxChick@#4…
    Actually, TGFD stopped drinking in late January, 1981; Maybe before you were born?
    The Guy from Delaware

  7. 7
    Posted by Tax Chick | November 10, 2009 at 7:10 PM

    TGFD@6 – I remember 1981. Sorry to disappoint if you are into that sort of thing.
    Commend you for your incredible tenure of sobriety. Leaves us, however, without an explanation for the off the reservation comments…

  8. 8
    Posted by guest | November 10, 2009 at 7:11 PM

    Jon -
    The sounds of silence are more damning than the epitaths they hurled at my dear Greg. That douche.
    Fondly,
    Mom

  9. 9
    Posted by EQUITIES Magazine | November 10, 2009 at 7:41 PM

    http://blogs.wooeb.com/EQUITIESMAGAZINE/Post.aspx?postID=62572

  10. 10
    Posted by guest | November 10, 2009 at 7:47 PM

    I am pretty sure the article linked by @9 was written by Greg.

  11. 11
    Posted by guest | November 10, 2009 at 9:32 PM

    Jon, we’re gonna need to go ahead and move you downstairs into storage B. We have some new people coming in, and we need all the space we can get. So if you could just go ahead and pack up your stuff and move it down there, that would be terrific, OK?
    Bill Lumbergh

  12. 12
    Posted by guest | November 11, 2009 at 12:50 AM

    My employees will always beat these half-wit banks. “Someone” will steal the last dollar from the last taxpayer to make it so.
    – Anonymous at Buckingham Palace, with bitches in Stamford

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