Lloyds Banking Group plans to sell about €2 billion of mainly Irish property loans, the latest phase in extricating itself from western Europe’s biggest property crash, according to a person with knowledge of the transaction.
Britain’s second-biggest government-aided bank would probably have to take discounts on the sale, said the person, who declined to be identified because details are private.
Ian Kitts, a Lloyds spokesman, declined to comment. Lloyds, based in London, has taken £11.8 billion of impairment charges on Irish loans since the collapse of the property bubble four years ago. That equates to 40 per cent of its end-2008 Irish loan book. Two years ago, the bank largely handed management of its Irish portfolio to Certus, a company set up by members of its former Irish management team.
Lloyds said in July its exposure to Ireland was “being closely managed, with a dedicated UK-based business support team in place to manage the winding down of the book”.
Some 86 per cent of Lloyds’s £16.1 billion Irish wholesale portfolio, was impaired, or unlikely to be repaid in full, at the end of June, the group said in July. – (Bloomberg)
