Lloyds Bank AGM could see investors vent fury over HBOS

The Lloyds Banking Group AGM this Friday could see investors vent fury over the decision by the Group to take over HBOS last year.

There’s growing disquiet amongst Lloyds bank shareholders over the HBOS deal. So far it has led to the chairman, Sir Victor Blank, announcing he will step down and leave by next summer.

This alone led to a significant increase in the Lloyds share price.

However, this is little comfort to the many shareholders who have lost significantly as a result of the overall drop in the Lloyds share price, heavily hit by the bad debts incurred by HBOS.

There is also issue with the proposed award of shares for the Lloyds bank top management team.

Whilst these awards are to be based on achieving financial targets on earnings per share and economic profit targets, there are also non-financial targets. It’s these that some investors have particular issue with.

The Association of British Insurers (ABI) has issued an ‘amber top’ warning on the share awards plan. This could trigger a rebellion by institutional shareholders.

Friday is also the deadline for shareholders to decide on whether to take part in the bank’s placing offer – this applies to qualifying shareholders, those who had their shares before 20 May.

All in all it will be interesting to see the position of the Lloyds share price, currently around 70.00p, at the end of the week.