HBOS-Lloyds, as arranged by Gordon Brown?

Short the UK

Meredith Whitney reckons US house prices will fall 40% to 45% peak to trough. If the UK follows suit, with our Buy-to-let crew panic selling, we could see such a fall.

Many people are going to lose it all - it will be a bloodbath.

Glenlivet Guy

Even winners make one mistake, so the reverse could be true!Anyway Eric Daniels and Victor Blank will have already been on to this in the current situation.If Lloyds TSB can pick this up for a snip, and a treasury guarantee in the background, it could be the deal of the decade and the shedding of all Lloyds overseas connections over the years i.e.Bank of London and South America, Bank of New Zealand and its running down of its investment bank, could really pay dividens and with Scottish and Widows in the stable , ghosh what an opportunity for this most prudent of banks, with the solid foundations laid by Brian Pitman and Sir Jeremy Morse over 20 years ago.

Sceptic

“Hello Robert? Damian here. Listen, an exclusive for you Lloyds is buying HBOS. Huge story, you’ll win an award for it. Value? No idea, just say £3 a share. But here’s the deal: we give you the story if you say Gordon organised it. Well, I don’t know how – he called Victor Blank and told him to do it and they all obeyed. Got that? Attaboy. Now go write it up, there's a good boy.”

Liz Brown

if Jonah was pressing for this, it's DOOMED

Mark

' I’m amazed the takeover went ahead, given that Brown tends to be 180 degrees'.

Yes but the 180 degree alternative was to have it on the government balance sheet alongside Northern Rock. Even Brown could not make that mistake twice. So remaining options were (a) let it go bust or (b) get some mug to buy it, with a place in the Lords to follow.

Even our Captain unCourageous could see (a) would be economic and political meltdown, whilst B of E must have been prepping LLoyds and HSBC for just such an event over the last few months.

Faceless Bureaucrat

Robert Peston could soon find himself in a spot of bother over this morning’s supposed shenanigans – seen elsewhere on the blogosphere…

“What is more significant is the fact that at least one city law firm is in the early stages of rounding up plaintiffs among the fund community for an action relating to the price manipulation of HBOS shares this morning.”

At least he will have plenty of time to devote to the future ex-PM’s biography.

John Moss

Peston's post is probably criminal as it is market sensitive information and as such should not have been disclosed at all. to put an actual price on teh deal - twice - is luancy.

Does my TV Tax not provide the BBC with lawyers?

dr cromarty

Many people are going to lose it all - it will be a bloodbath.

No they won't.
If they are buy-to-let wallahs they'll lose the money they gambled - simple as that. Win some, lose some.

oldtimer

Of course he is trying to take the credit. Yesterday, at Stormont, he was trying to imply that the recent drop in the oil price was linked to his recent visit to Saudi Arabia!

This was a new one to me, to add to his repeated claim that we had low inflation and low debt in the UK.

For a reality check on the current financial crisis I recommend Martin Wolf`s article in the FT today (available on line).

Damon

Didn't the government block Lloyds buying Northern Rock in summer 2007? Brown's kept quiet about that.

Its hard to believe any Chief Exec would buy a group like HBOS because a soon to be deposed and highly discredited Prime Minister told him; market reaction wouldn't permit it.

Chuck Unsworth

Peston is frantically covering his backside.

gavin

No one cares what Gordon thinks or does on this. He has given any association between the words finance and Scottish a very dodgy reputation. The really interesting question is what Alex Salmond thinks about it. If Scotland was independent how would they cope with this situation ? There are two of the large clearing banks registered in Scotland. Would the Scottish taxpayer be able to support them in tough times ?

Short the UK

dr. - we don't have jingle mail in the UK. If you default on your BTL you will be chased for the debt and your personal home can be sold to re-pay the outstanding debt. There are 1,000,000 BTL mortgages in the UK and the bulk of them will be underwater by the end of 2009. If you lose your job and the cashflow, how do you finance your property empire? You are screwed: you have to de-leverage and act like Goldman Sachs or you'll end up like Lehman. Too many people in the UK are carrying enormous amounts of debt. We are in a titanic Debt Crunch.

dennis

John Moss

Peston's post is probably criminal

I'm no lawyer but I'd be jolly surprised (and outraged) if making price sensitive information known to the public were a criminal offence.

I thought the whole drift of policy in this area was towards encouraging institutions to make stuff public sooner.

Maybe one of our learned friends could clarify?

What ought to be a criminal offence is Peston's weird, swooping, wildly over-emphatic way of speaking. Three times this week he's made me spill my soup.

mac

Dennis - Peston's speaking style jars, I agree. Perhaps regional accents are old hat in the BBC now, and a peculiar delivery is now chic- witness sports editor Mihir Bose.

Sixty Years

I wonder how many idiots rushed out and bought shares when he said it would go for three quid? Last night he said HBoS was all to do with Speculators. He obviously doesn't understand that the company had a rotten balance sheet. RBS next?

John Miller

Aaaaagghhh!

The point is that GB did not sell gold at the bottom of the market - he created the bottom.

He announced that he was going to sell at some time in the future, everyone bought short, the gold price plummeted and he sold it cheap.

He knows nothing about finance, economics, interpersonal relationships and bingo.

richardj

this could be the final cock-up -spinning and causing market moves. it is insider information and those who have lost money might have an action against Number 10. further proof of total unsuitability for office of any kind - put on your white tie and resign now you wear one.

David Lindsay

An independent Scotland could not have saved HBOS, just as it certainly could not underwrite one, never mind all, of the Royal Bank of Scotland, Standard Life, Scottish Widows, and many others besides.

Scottish independence is a dead cause. Good for Brown if he played any part in killing it. He is, after all, the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom.

Seasurfer1

Talks may not work. HBOS IS STRUGGLING with up to +5% Libor rates which are untenable. The situation is very sticky and the problems are dire both ways. Get ready for a walk away by Lloyds, ie if the Gov caves in with its guarantees.

salieri

Brown's biographer? Poor chap.

Anonymous

Dennis: leaking confidential price sensitive information can most certainly be an offence - either under the criminal law or a breach of various market abuse rules. Peston would probably argue that he was doing his job as a journalist. But anyone working in the City will tell you that Governments (and their agencies) are some of the leakiest of all.....

dearieme

If Brown brought about the takeover without requiring that HQ be in Edinburgh, then Labour loses Scotland. And so it can't win the UK. Perhaps permanently.

David Lindsay

Dearieme, the Tories are going to win the majority of English seats next time, but that will always alternate fairly regularly between the two main parties.

Whereas in Scotland, at least, Labour really could be on the way out.

Scotland has never been the heart and soul of the Labour Movement imagined by the London media. Labour has never won more than two thirds of the seats there, and has never won an overall majority of the total vote there. As recently as 1992, it was the only part of the country to deliver a net gain in Tory seats.

Labour would be a lot better off without Scotland.

Liz Upton

I don't believe it for a moment - a transparent attempt to take the credit for something that was nothing to do with him. And surely it's the Chancellor's job to negotiate such things anyway?

I. Hatethoseeubastards

Don't the EU get to OK (or not) this merger? Maybe they'll put the kibosh on it just because they can, so Brown is reminded of who really pulls the strings.