Lloyds rights issue: Lloyds creates new regulatory capital asset class

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”.