Britain’s banks headline this week’s company news, with three of the biggest high-street lenders reporting annual results at a time when the sector is under intense scrutiny.
Week Ahead: Results due from banking giants this weekoday and is expected to report full-year pre-tax profits up from £13bn to £15.2bn in 2015, having slumped 17 per cent the previous year.
Europe’s biggest bank has also confirmed it will keep its headquarters in London.
Lloyds Banking Group steps up to the plate on Thursday, but its annual results could make for grim reading. The bank is expected to have racked up £2bn in PPI mis-selling charges in the fourth quarter of 2015, as well as a £1.1bn hit for this year.
Analysts at Jefferies say Lloyds, which reports for the first time since Chancellor George Osborne postponed the share sale to the public, will see statutory pre-tax profits slump from £1.8bn to £1.24bn in 2015.
On Friday it is Royal Bank of Scotland, which is set to register its eighth year of losses, still reeling from the effects of the financial crisis.
RBS revealed last month that it would stay in the red after a £3.6bn hit from pension costs and mis-selling.
Concerns about Deutsche Bank’s balance sheet sent shockwaves through the whole sector earlier this month and caused share prices across the board to tumble. Laith Khalaf at Hargreaves Lansdown said: “The recent sell-off in European banking stocks was pretty extreme and suggests solvency was the issue that was scaring the horses, yet capital ratios are much healthier than they were when the financial crisis hit.”
The Asia-focused Standard Chartered is also set to report full-year results tomorrow, which will reveal the effects of the slowdown in emerging markets.
Tomorrow is set to be the busiest day in the diary, with annual results due from Ladbrokes, Intercontinental Hotels Group, Meggitt, Provident Financial and oil services firm Wood Group.
Housebuilders including Persimmon, Bovis and Barratt are also on the reporting card, while there are annual results due from British Airways owner IAG, British American Tobacco, insurer RSA, Alton Towers operator Merlin and William Hill.
