Lloyds Reports Jump in Full-Year Profit, Pumps Up Dividend
February 22 2017 - 3:00AM
Dow Jones News
By Max Colchester
Lloyds Banking Group PLC said net profit quadrupled last year to
2 billion pounds ($2.50 billion), the result of the bank's
successful cost-cutting efforts and no repeat of provisions for
customer compensation.
The bank, which is two years into a three-year turnaround plan,
said operating costs continued to fall, offsetting a slight fall in
revenue to GBP17.3 billion from GBP17.4 billion a year earlier.
Lloyds said it would pay a total ordinary dividend of 2.55 pence
a share, up 13% from the year before.
One boost for Lloyds' bottom line: The bank was spared having to
put more money aside in the final quarter of the year to compensate
customers who bought insurance products they didn't need.
The British bank's improved performance comes as the U.K.
government has cut its Lloyds stake to below 5% in the past year,
marking another step towards normalization for the retail bank
after its near collapse in the financial crisis. This was
reinforced in December when Lloyds announced it was buying Bank of
America Corp.'s U.K. credit-card business MBNA Ltd., for GBP1.9
billion, the U.K. lender's first major acquisition since its
bailout during the crisis.
-Write to Max Colchester at max.colchester@wsj.com
(END) Dow Jones Newswires
February 22, 2017 02:45 ET (07:45 GMT)
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