True, Lloyds has anticipated some Scottish political sensitivities by saying it will make The Mound, HBOS’s existing headquarters, the combined group’s new Scottish head office.
But a regional headquarters is a different thing than the group HQ of a FTSE 100-quote company, and so perhaps even more attention is being given to whether Bank of Scotland - the BOS in HBOS - survives as part of the new group corporate title or whether it just survives as a brand within that enlarged company.
Lloyds TSB, itself formed from from the merger of Lloyds and Scotland-based TSB in the mid-1990s, has said the new title, assuming shareholder approval for the HBOS takeover is received and there are no rival bidders, has not been decided yet.
This despite the fact that the two companies had been in reasonably intensive talks for the six weeks before they announced the deal la
st week.
Without any steer from within the two consenting adult banks, it would seem to me that there are three overwhelming favourites for the group name here.
One, Lloyds TSB. This would be in line with practice when the likes of Royal Bank of Scotland took over NatWest, Barclays took over Woolwich and Banco Santander took over Abbey.
The target banks’ in these cases kept their brand names but did not make the cut to remain in the title of the parent group.
There are many similar cases of previously iconic names disappearing in City of London marriages.
Morgan Grenfell, Warburgs and Mercury Asset Management all no longer exist (even as brand names) following their takeover in the 1990s by Deutsche Bank, Swiss Banking Corporation and Merrill Lynch respectively.
However, Lloyds TSB may decide that Bank of Scotland has such resonance north of the border it should be in the group title. Lloyds Bank of Scotland? Lloyds BOS?
Obviously in this situation the TSB would have to be ‘lost’ or otherwise it might look unwieldy or too much like Acronym-Central.
Or possibly, Lloyds may decide to be known as Lloyds Halifax in recognition to the immense depositor following the former building society has within Britain.
People await Lloyds’s footwork on this with much interest.
