Sale of 632 Lloyds branches to Co-op

[ahinton]

Isn't the Clare Street one a Cheltenham & Gloucester, not a Lloyds? Different type of business.

Be that as it may, it's all still part of the same (un)stable - and the result will still be a bank branch, not only in Clare Street Bristol but also everywhere else where such rebranding attempts occur, as they'll all have to do given the sell-off and buy-in that's occurred. Is the branch in Clare Street the one that was once a branch of Hill Samuel (whose merchant banking arm was, if I remember correctly, taken over by TSB years ago)?

[Vile Consort]

What? This is so typical, the LloydsTSB sale is being driven by EU regs and supposedly is to help customers, but it's us poor sods who loose out. This sounds like an IT nightmare waiting to happen and I should think every LloydsTSB customer rues the day when GB persuaded them to take over HBOS. Better shoot the black horse now.

The issue will be that the Co-op have paid for the accounts at those branches, and there will be an agreement in place to ensure that they aren't transferred elsewhere in Lloyd's before the sale is completed. It's similar to when the firm I worked for was transferred from GE to another undertaking: once the transfer had been announced, we weren't allowed to apply for jobs elsewhere in GE, lest the new buyers found themselves buying a company with no employees.

You could transfer to another bank altogether and then back, or you could wait for the sale to complete and then transfer.

[french frank]

Be that as it may, it's all still part of the same (un)stable - and the result will still be a bank branch, not only in Clare Street Bristol but also everywhere else where such rebranding attempts occur, as they'll all have to do given the sell-off and buy-in that's occurred.

True, but it's only a reversal of the previous situation because Lloyds magnificently restored branch in Corn Street is only a step away from the Clare Street C&G, while the Coop Bank is just round the corner in St Stephen's Street.

Much as I would have liked to have returned to the TSB fold (albeit only nominally), I can see that if my local Lloyds had been sold off people's choice would have been limited as it is the only local Lloyds: customers would either have to stay with the new Coop/TSB or go much further afield for their local branch. It probably makes more sense to group the Coop and C&Gs together in the financial heart of the city than to turn one local high street Lloyds into a TSB.

Is the branch in Clare Street the one that was once a branch of Hill Samuel (whose merchant banking arm was, if I remember correctly, taken over by TSB years ago)?

Pass ...

[Resurrection Man]

Here is a fairy tale. Once upon a time .......

Back in October 2008 when it looked like finacial disaster was about to make the government look like idiots and many banks ('tho probably NOT Lloyds) were in real trouble Brown and Darling held a cocktail party at No.10 and the chairman of Lloyds (A long time Labour supporter) was there and Brown & Darling got him in a corner and said "Look we are going to have to bail out RBS we want you to do a normal 'take over' of HBOS and we will waive any competition rules to enable the take over. So the chairman went back to his CEO and told him to do it and to rush it through, the CEO did this without checking what HBOS was worth (The reality is it was worth NOTHING)

The end result was that Lloyds paid what subsequently turned out to be far too high a price (1 penny a share would have been generous ) but at least they had a lot more branches which they could use to increase their customer base.

Then came the double whammy, first it didn't matter that the UK government had waived any monopoly rules, the European court ruled that the take over WAS unfair and ordered Lloyds to dispose of about 600 branches, and of course gutless Brown & Darling didn't stand up to them and just accepted what the European competition authority had said. Then of course Lloyds had to have a bail out because like I said above HBOS was worth nothing, in fact it was worth less than nothing and Lloyds ended up owning a bankrupt bank and having to accept a bail out from the government.

So if you want to know who is responsible, it is:-
a) Gordon Brown & Alister Darling for forcing Lloyds to take over these branches when they didn't want or need to.
b) The chairman & CEO of Lloyds for doing what the stupid Prime Minister told them to do
c) The UK Monopolies Commission for not standing up to Brussels
d) The European Monopoly authorities for ordering Lloyds to dispose of 600 branches to meet their rules

[secret squirrel]

Resurrection Man,

You are mistaken on two counts:
1) fairy tales traditionally have a happy ("and they lived happily everafter") ending but not so for, and lest you forget...
2) the 10s of thousands of hard working staff who, if not made redundant, have since seen their shares' value fall from approx £10 (or 1,000p) fifteen years ago to nothing worth - well, okay, 28p today...

Please, one and all, remember that the media's (arguably correct) portrayal of "corrupt bankers" does not reflect accurately the thousands of hard-working, poorly-paid staff ("but you do get paid extras by way of 'share options' [but no dividend - ahem]...") whose day-to-day jobs have become even harder as they are fewer in number with more customers to serve notwithstanding target impositions from forces dark in Europe and the FSA.

Next time any of you have reason to grumble at a Lloyds employee, please be nice about it: it's not his fault (usually...!).

ss

[Resurrection Man]

I never grumble at the employees unless they are doing something wrong. They don't make the rules.

[Flosshilde]

True, but it's only a reversal of the previous situation because Lloyds magnificently restored branch in Corn Street is only a step away from the Clare Street C&G, while the Coop Bank is just round the corner in St Stephen's Street.

Much as I would have liked to have returned to the TSB fold (albeit only nominally), I can see that if my local Lloyds had been sold off people's choice would have been limited as it is the only local Lloyds: customers would either have to stay with the new Coop/TSB or go much further afield for their local branch. It probably makes more sense to group the Coop and C&Gs together in the financial heart of the city than to turn one local high street Lloyds into a TSB.Pass ...

I assume that once LloydsTSB had been told that they must dispose of some branches they then decided which branches they wanted to lose (probably the most profitable) & then put them up for sale to the bank that made the best offer.