Lloyds Banking Group (LLOY) has set aside almost £22bn in total to cover the rush of complaints for PPI mis-selling – more than all of its combined profits since it started paying for the scandal in 2013. The lender earmarked an extra £1.8bn to cover PPI costs on Thursday after being stung by a last-ditch scramble for compensation ahead of a deadline for claims earlier this year. This extra hit almost wiped out profits for the third quarter of 2018. It dragged them down to just £50m, 97% less than a year earlier. Lloyds has now put aside money for the scandal equivalent to the UK’s policing budget for 18 months, with more than £1bn worth of change left over.
Profits spiralled 15% at oil behemoth Royal Dutch Shell ‘B’ (RDSB) as it was battered by lower energy prices and weak global growth. Shell warned that bleak trading conditions could hamper its bid to reduce debt levels and delay a $25bn (£19bn) scheme to return cash to investors through the world’s biggest share buyback. The company’s stock was down around 4% on Thursday afternoon, wiping £15bn off the value of one the FTSE 100’s biggest members and making it the day’s biggest faller on the blue-chip index. Despite the drop in profits from a year ago, Shell still posted much better-results than expected. Lifted by a healthy oil and gas trading division, the company made $4.8bn in the third quarter of 2019.
