Britain's government is selling off the rest of Lloyds next spring

• Lianna Brinded
 

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GettyLloyds CEO Antonio Horta-Osorio has a lot to smile about.

Lloyds Banking Group will be fully privatised once again next year after the British government revealed that it plans to sell off its remaining stake in 2016.

In a regulatory statement, the UK Treasury announced its "intention to fully exit from its Lloyds shareholding in the coming months, and as part of this ... shares will be sold to retail investors."

It will sell a £2 billion ($3 billion) slice of its remaining 11.98% stake in the bank to retail investors in the spring next year, without giving a specified date. 

Lloyds received £20.5 billion ($31.4 billion) in state handouts between 2008 and 2009 following the credit crisis. In return, the government held a 43% stake in the lender and it has steadily chipped away at its holding.

It has since sold large chunks of the bank back to institutional investors in the private sector over the last two years. 

In December 2014, Osborne launched a trading plan that allows people to buy Lloyds stock for an average price of over 80p, well above the average 73.6p originally paid for the shares. It was due to end no later than the June 30, 2015. However, the plan is now being extended until December 31, 2015.

The Treasury's announcement today confirms that the government is ready to sell off the rest of its stake in 2016, with the condition that this will depend on "market conditions." In other words, if the stock market is performing badly or Lloyds shares look too volatile, it may hold off on the share sale.

The announcement added that the money raised in the Lloyds stake sell-off will go towards paying down the national debt.

Retail investors will be able to buy Lloyds stock by online and post applications. Members of the public will be offered a discount of 5% off the market price, with a bonus share for every 10 shares for those who hold their investment for more than a year. 

BERNANKE: The DoJ should've locked up more people for causing the financial crisis

• Sam Ro
 
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REUTERS/Hyungwon KangUS Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson, left, looks over to Fed Chair Ben Bernanke, second left, and New York Fed President Tim Geithner, center.

In the fall of 2008, the US economy spiraled into its worst recession since the Great Depression.

Years of lax lending standards helped inflate a credit bubble that burst, bringing down banks, seizing financial markets, and preventing even the healthiest companies from getting desperately needed liquidity. Massive government bailouts and emergency stimulus programs followed, helping to stabilize the system. But only after many lost their jobs and well beings.

Federal Reserve Chair Ben Bernanke was on the front lines seven years ago as everything went down. No longer a policymaker, Bernanke is letting his hair down in his soon-to-be-released memoirs, "The Courage to Act: A Memoir of a Crisis and Its Aftermath."

Ahead of the release, Bernanke spoke to USA Today's Susan Page about his time at the Fed during the financial crisis.

Page asked a question that's been repeatedly asked for years.

"Why didn’t anyone go to jail?" she asked Bernanke. "Should somebody have gone to jail?"

“Yeah, I think so," he said.

Bernanke explained that the Fed did not have the authority to jail anyone. Rather, it was the Department of Justice's responsibility to do that. And while a few folks here and there went to prison for various violations, it's largely been the financial entities that have paid the penalties.

"A financial firm, of course, is a legal fiction," Bernanke explained. "It’s not a person. You can’t put a financial firm in jail."

"It would’ve been my preference to have more investigation of individual actions because obviously everything that went wrong or was illegal was done by some individual, not by an abstract firm," he continued. "In that respect, there should’ve been more accountability at the individual level."

The concern is that without sufficient punishment at the individual level, there is little accountability. And with no precedent for such a punishment, we risk people recklessly pushing the system toward a crisis again.

Here's the whole interview:

SEE ALSO: The 27 scariest moments of the financial crisis

SGX launches index services in Asia, seeks to build regional index business

By

Nisha Ramchandaninishar@sph.com.sg@Nisha_BT

Singapore Exchange (SGX) has launched a new index business, SGX Index Edge, that will offer comprehensive services aimed at addressing the rising demand for index-linked investment in Asia. 

PHOTO: BLOOMBERG NEWS

OCT 5, 20157:54 AM

SINGAPORE Exchange (SGX) has launched a new index business, SGX Index Edge, that will offer comprehensive services aimed at addressing the rising demand for index-linked investment in Asia.

"The SGX branded indices will also provide greater transparency and profile SGX's securities and derivatives markets to investors, helping them to make more informed investment decisions and attracting greater participation in its securities and derivatives markets," SGX said in a release on Monday.

Since October last year, SGX has successfully conducted a beta launch on a series of futures-based indices - SGX Access Asia indices - tailored for product issuers of exchange-traded notes (ETNs), OTC (Over-the-Counter) products and retail structured products. The Access Asia suite of 60 indices are distributed through SGX's network of brokers, major data vendors, independent software vendors, other exchanges and trading firms.

Plans are also in the works to offer Asia-based index solutions for product issuers across the region,including thematic and strategy-based equity indices for the Singapore market.

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Loh Boon Chye, chief executive officer of SGX, said: "As Asia's most international exchange and a leading market infrastructure for investors across Asia, we are in a unique position to develop Asia-focused index capabilities, as a natural extension of SGX's existing suite of products and services. The launch of SGX Index Edge demonstrates our ability to continually innovate to position SGX strongly for the long-term as we look towards becoming the pan-Asian index provider of choice."

Tinku Gupta, SGX's head of market data and connectivity, added: "Offering index services...helps us in attracting new institutional channels that are increasingly turning towards index-linked investment solutions for their investors. While we will create SGX branded indices, we will also continue to grow our strong partnerships with global index providers to further our reach and expertise for both our securities and derivatives markets."

    
 

Singapore's new Acting Education Ministers stress a more diverse education system

By

Angela Tanangelat@sph.com.sg

Singapore's two newly appointed Acting Education Ministers, Ng Chee Meng and Ong Ye Kung, on Monday reiterated the government's commitment to build a more diverse system to help every student fulfil their potential. 

PHOTOS: PAP, AZIZ HUSSIN

OCT 5, 201512:23 PM

SINGAPORE'S two newly appointed Acting Education Ministers, Ng Chee Meng and Ong Ye Kung, on Monday reiterated the government's commitment to build a more diverse system to help every student fulfil their potential.

In a joint message, Mr Ng, Acting Minister for Education (Schools), and Mr Ong, Acting Minister for Education (Higher Education and Skills), said Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong's decision to appoint two Acting Education Ministers is a strong signal - that while the system is expanding in both scale and complexity, the government is determined to continue building more and better pathways for Singaporeans to pursue their passions and fulfil their aspirations.

Looking ahead, in the schools, the Ministry of Education (MOE) will nurture students and young people to be their best, holistically.

"A key outcome must be to imbue each Singaporean with the drive to learn - not just while they are in school, but throughout life," they said.

In higher education and skills, MOE will be doing more to drive the key national effort - SkillsFuture - to support all learners, from students, to youths, to adults.

"We will discover and nurture individual talents and abilities, and give Singaporeans more opportunities to develop and deepen their skills, and achieve mastery. This will have important implications on the way people learn, when they learn, how they learn, what credentials they achieve, and how workplaces and society recognises them. The system will become even more diverse," they said.

"At the end of it all, we want every school to be a good school, every student an engaged learner, every teacher a caring educator, and every parent a supportive partner."

    
 

German private sector growth points to moderate Q3 expansion: PMI

OCT 5, 20154:00 PM

[BERLIN] Germany's private sector expanded in September, a survey showed on Monday, and while the rate of growth was slower than a month before, it still suggested Europe's largest economy was on track for solid growth in the third quarter.

Markit's final composite Purchasing Managers' Index, which tracks activity in the manufacturing and services sectors that together account for more than two-thirds of the German economy, dropped to 54.1 in September from 55.0 in the previous month.

That was the 29th consecutive month that the composite index was above the 50 mark separating expansion from contraction, but the reading was slightly below a flash estimate of 54.3. "The results from the services PMI come on the back of positive manufacturing numbers, suggesting that the upturn in Germany's private sector remains broad-based," Markit economist Oliver Kolodseike said, adding that the PMI data pointed to moderate growth in the July-September period.

The index for the services sector also fell slightly to 54.1 from 54.9 the previous month but it remained above the long-run series average and new orders in the sector rose at their strongest rate in a year.

Some service providers said increased activity was a result of the need to build accommodation for an influx of refugees and asylum seekers expected to hit 800,000 by the end of the year.

Service firms were slightly less upbeat about their future prospects than in August but they remained optimistic overall. "Germany's service sector ended the third quarter on a solid footing. Output continued to rise at a robust rate as service providers benefitted from increased demand," Mr Kolodseike said.

The higher inflows of new work led to service providers hiring new staff at the strongest rate since the end of 2011.

Detailed PMI data are only available under licence from Markit and customers need to apply to Markit for a licence.

REUTERS

      

Consumers' outstanding unsecured debt continues to rise in H1 2015

By

Nisha Ramchandaninishar@sph.com.sg@Nisha_BT

Consumers' outstanding unsecured debt in Singapore continued to rise in the first of half of 2015, according to statistics from Credit Bureau Singapore. 

ST PHOTO

OCT 5, 201510:19 AM

CONSUMERS' outstanding unsecured debt in Singapore continued to rise in the first of half of 2015, according to statistics from Credit Bureau Singapore.

In June, the number of consumers who missed two or more months of their unsecured debt payments rose 10 per cent to 85,352 compared to the year-ago period, the consumer credit bureau said in a report on Monday. Meanwhile, there was a 32 per cent increase from the corresponding number of debtors in 2011.

These debtors, who hold unsecured debt either in the form of a credit card, overdraft facility or personal loan, account for 5 per cent of the total population of unsecured credit customers.

Their overdue balances were also higher, rising 7 per cent year on year to around S$288.45 million.

Over the last four years, unsecured debt exposure has also grown, with average balance per consumer for unsecured credit cards and overdrafts up 16 per cent to S$7,971 from 2011 to 2015. At the same time, debt exposure appears to be stabilising in June, the report said, where average balance per consumer for unsecured credit cards and overdrafts dipped to S$7,971 from S$8,018 the year before.

Average principal sum for unsecured personal loans rose 5 per cent to S$13,584.

William Lim, executive director of Credit Bureau Singapore, said: "While consumers' outstanding debt remains high, we note that average debt exposure for credit cards and overdrafts is stabilising. This may indicate that the measures put in place by both the regulator and banks to help borrowers pay down their debt are beginning to have an effect on the market. CBS will continue to monitor this trend."