1. The Treasury hedge fund

HM Treasury today becomes perhaps the biggest hedge fund in the UK: it is investing £25.5bn in Royal Bank of Scotland shares and £5.7bn in Lloyds shares, financed almost exclusively by borrowing. It's probably quite good business. If we're past...

02/11/2009 | 72 Hits | Read more...

2. RBS and Lloyds re-made by Europe

I am still away sorting out my family stuff. But I could not let the most significant ever forced reconstruction of the British banking industry go by (one of the most important ordained reconstructions of any UK industry) without sticking my oar...

02/11/2009 | 69 Hits | Read more...

3. Bank reform: The radical way

Please forgive me for not having published a column for a bit. I've been pre-occupied sorting out family stuff. That stuff isn't quite ticketyboo yet. So the blog will go into hibernation for some weeks (please don't look so pleased). There...

21/10/2009 | 68 Hits | Read more...

4. Lloyds: compensating taxpayers

The Chancellor isn't going to let Lloyds out of the Government Asset Protection Scheme (GAPS) without extracting a price. The Treasury saved Lloyds earlier this year by promising to provide it with the protection of GAPS - which was a statement...

08/10/2009 | 65 Hits | Read more...

5. Should Darling back Lloyds' rights issue?

I'm not quite sure why there has been another great flurry of speculation overnight about how Lloyds intends to raise additional capital. Nothing very significant has changed since the last couple of times I wrote about this (in my notes Lloyds:...

08/10/2009 | 71 Hits | Read more...