By Scott Wright
SHARES in Lloyds Banking Group, owner of Bank of Scotland, plunged more than 11 per cent amid turmoil on the stock market yesterday as boss Charlie Nunn warned the lender was at “heightened alert” of cyber-attack.
Mr Nunn said the bank’s security defences were at a “heightened and elevated level” after Russian forces began their assault on Ukraine, with sanctions imposed by the west on Moscow anticipated to lead to retaliatory cyber-attacks.
“We’ve been working closely with the Government over the last two weeks,” he added.
The comments came shortly after Lloyds reported a profit before tax of £6.9 billion, lower than analysts’ forecasts, for 2021, up from £1.2bn the year before. Profits were boosted by the release of £1.2bn of provisions set aside for bad loans arising from the pandemic, reflecting the improving economic outlook for the UK.
However, there were remediation charges of £1.3bn, with £775m in the fourth quarter, including a £600m charge relating to the HBOS Reading scandal.
Lloyds’ results coincided with the publication of its annual report for 2021, which reveals that Mr Nunn received total remuneration of £5.5 million since succeeding Antonio Horta-Osorio in August. This included a golden hello worth £4.2bn to compensate Mr Nunn for unvested awards given up at previous employer HSBC.
Mr Horta-Osorio, who recently stepped down after a short spell as chairman of Credit Suisse following breaches of Covid quarantine rules, received £2.5m, including bonuses of £1.5m
The annual report showed also that Lloyds reintroduced bonuses for staff following a fallow year because of Covid in 2020, with a group performance share pool of £399m approved by the remuneration committee.
Lloyds recommended a final ordinary dividend of 1.33p per share, taking the total for the year to 2p per share.
Shares closed down 5.6p, or 10.7%, at 46.6p.
Last week, it emerged that NatWest had hiked its bonus pool by 44 per cent to nearly £300m for 2021, and unveiled proposals to introduce a new remuneration policy that could pave the way for major pay hikes for senior executives.
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