Lloyds Banking Group (LLOY) has put aside a further £1.8bn to cover a surge in payment protection insurance (PPI) complaints before the August claims deadline, which nearly wiped out its quarterly profit. Including the PPI charge, the bank’s profit before tax slumped to £50m for the three months to 30 September, from a profit of £1.8bn in the third quarter last year. The result was weaker than expected. The latest charge is at the top end of estimates, and takes the group’s total bill to £21.8bn. PPI has become the banking industry’s biggest mis-selling scandal and Lloyds accounts for almost half the total bill, which has risen to around £50bn.
Carpetright (CPR) is in talks about a cut-price £15m sale to its biggest shareholder as the specialist retailer said it needed to raise £80m to stay afloat. Meditor, a British hedge fund headed by former Old Mutual banker and poker player Talal Shakerchi, already owns 30% of Carpetright’s shares and bought up more than £40m of its debts in August. The firm is offering investors just 5p a share, a big discount to the 9p that Carpetright’s shares were trading at on Wednesday, before the Meditor offer was announced.
