Capital raising: Lloyds gets its money, any which way

Lloyds Banking Group is finally catching some breaks. Its £22.5 billion ($37.6 billion) underwritten capital-raising – the largest ever in Europe – saves it from falling even further into UK government ownership and has seen off the risk of the European Commission’s competition authority imposing a complete break-up, as it did on ING. Execution analyst Joseph Dickerson says the EC’s plan for ING "looks to us like a pre-pack bankruptcy expected to be funded by common shareholders via a rights issue". So Lloyds and its investors are mightily relieved not to share such a fate and its bonds and equities rallied as the £13.5 billion rights issue priced and the £9 billion bond exchange closed at the end of November.

Lloyds had been in negotiations with the EC long before the combined rights issue and exchange offer was devised with...