31st Jul 2015 06:18
LONDON (Alliance News) - Lloyds Banking Group PLC Friday reported higher profit in the first half, said it will consider returning surplus capital to shareholders in future, and raised its guidance for 2015.
The results were not free of bad news. The bank took a "disappointing" GBP1.4 billion provision for the payment-protection insurance scandal in the half.
Lloyds said it made a GBP1.19 billion pretax profit in the six months to the end of June, up from GBP863 million in the corresponding half last year. Underlying profit, which strips out costs such as the provision for PPI, increased to GBP4.38 billion from GBP3.82 billion.
The bank said it will pay an interim dividend of 0.75 pence per share, and said it will consider special dividends or share buy-backs in future.
The bank raised its guidance for both net interest margin and asset quality ratio in 2015 as a whole.
The UK government has been completing the sale of its stake in the group, cutting its shareholding down to 14.98% of the bank from the 43% it took as a result of a GBP20 billion bailout in the financial crisis of 2007-09.
The bank's improving health has already facilitated the return to paying dividends, with a symbolic 0.75p per share paid for 2014, the first such distribution since the crisis struck. Further detail about the bank's plan to distribute surplus capital had been highly anticipated by analysts and investors.
By Samuel Agini; [email protected]; @samuelagini
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