Lloyds to sell £1 billion of property loans - sources

Published 20th Sep 2011

Part-nationalised bank Lloyds has launched the sale of a portfolio of commercial property loans worth 1 billion pounds, sources with knowledge of the matter said on Tuesday.

The property loan sale is being handled by investment bank JP Morgan Cazenove and is part of Lloyds' ongoing moves to shed non-core assets and restructure its balance sheet.

Lloyds had said in August that it had sold 1.8 billion pounds worth of real estate loans in the first half of 2011.

Lloyds has been dogged by a legacy of bad debts from its government-brokered acquisition of troubled rival HBOS during the credit crisis.

The government had to rescue both it and rival Royal Bank of Scotland with taxpayer bailouts during the crisis, with the state finishing with stakes of 41 percent in Lloyds and 83 percent in RBS.

European competition regulators ordered both banks to sell off assets to compensate for their state bail-outs, and Lloyds is currently in the process of looking to sell some 630 retail bank branches.

Source: ' Reuters '

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