SHARES in Lloyds Banking Group edged up nearly three per cent in early trading after the UK’s biggest high street lender pledged to return up to £4 billion of capital to investors.
The Bank of Scotland owner announced a total ordinary dividend of 3.21p per share, up 5% on 2017, alongside a proposed share buyback of £1.75bn. The bank said that, taken together, the moves represented a total return to shareholders of up to £4bn, 26 per cent higher than last year.
The increase in capital return came as Lloyds reported a statutory pre-tax profit of £5.96bn for 2018, up from £5.3bn, with net interest margin higher at 2.93 per cent versus 2.86% in 2017.
While Royal Bank and now HSBC have made provisions for bad debts rising in the event of a hard Brexit, Lloyds' chief executive Antonio Horta-Osorio declared the “UK economy has proven itself to be resilient with record employment and continued GDP growth.”
He added: “Although the near term outlook for the UK economy remains uncertain, our strategy continues to deliver for our customers.”
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