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Lloyds may sell E650m in Irish property

Tuesday, March 19 15:48:52

According to reports today, Britain's Lloyds Banking Group is considering the sale of its highly impaired Irish property loans worth E650m.

The London-based lender, which is 39pc owned by the British state, will have to sell at a huge discount, a source told Bloomberg news service in London.

In 2010, Lloyds started to wind down and close the Irish arm it purchased two years earlier as part of a takeover of HBOS.

According to the bank's annual report, more than 90pc of its £7.4bn commercial real estate loan book is impaired.

CarVal Investors LLC agreed to acquire E380m of Irish and UK property loans from the bank at about 25pc of face value in November.

The same month, Lloyds also agreed to sell £1.5bn of Irish commercial real estate loans to Apollo Global Management LLC for 10pc of face value.

The news comes after the bank announced it was cutting a total 8,550 jobs as part of a major restructuring.

Lloyds reported a loss for last year of £570m, down from £3.5bn in 2011, blaming a £3.5bn provision for mis-selling payment protection insurance.

The British government has indicated it would sell-off its stake in the bank within months.