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Lloyds Banking Group pre-tax profit quadruples in 2014

Xinhua, February 28, 2015 Adjust font size:

Lloyds Banking Group announced on Friday that its profit before tax in the year of 2014 was 1.762 billion pounds (or 2.66 billion U.S. dollars), more than quadruple that of a year prior (415 million pounds).

The 23.9 percent state-owned bank also announced that it will pay dividends to shareholders for the first time since the financial crisis in 2008.

Underlying profit for the year 2014 was 7.756 billion pounds, 26 percent higher than the previous year's 6.166 billion pounds. Net income in year 2014 was 1.499 billion pounds, far better than the 802 million net losses a year earlier.

The group will pay a dividend of 0.75 pence per share for its shareholders, it said.

The group's Common equity Tier 1 ratio (CET 1), a gauge of financial stamina, strengthened to 12.8 percent at the end of December 2014 from the 10.3 percent a year earlier, figures also showed.

Antonio Horta-Osorio, Group Chief Executive, said in a statement: "Over the past four years we have transformed Lloyds Banking Group into a low cost, low risk, UK focused retail and commercial bank."

"We enter the next phase of our strategy from a position of strength. We will remain focused on our customers, embrace the digital age throughout the whole Group," he said.

Last October, the Britain-based bank announced that it plans to close 200 branches and lay off around 9,000 jobs in the next three years. Endit