Friday preview: Lloyds Banking to dip pen in red ink

Thursday's results from fallen banking titan Royal Bank of Scotland showed the difficulties of deciding which numbers to focus on when it comes to massive banking operations, and it is not likely to be much easier when another part-nationalised lender, Lloyds, publishes its figures on Friday.

For what it is worth, the bank is tipped by the communual voice of the investment analyst community to report a full year pre-tax loss of £355.7m on revenue of £20.6bn, but how "pre-tax loss" is defined is open to interpretation, as evidenced by commentary from Nic Clarke at broker Charles Stanley.

"On 8 November, Lloyds Banking Group (LBG) issued an interim management statement in which its stated that in the first nine months of 2011 it made a statutory loss before tax of £3,858m (2010: profit of £1,967m). LBG also reported that profit before tax fell by 30% to £1,748m, in the first nine months of 2011, on a combined businesses basis," Clarke wrote.

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"This differs from the statutory results as it is before a number of items such as the integration, simplification and EU mandated retail business disposal costs of £1,066m (2010: cost of £1,172m), volatility arising in insurance businesses of -£737m (2010: £110m), amortisation of purchased intangibles -£428m (2010: -£478m), provision in relation to German insurance business litigation of - £175m (2010: £0m), the cost of the £3,200m PPI insurance provision this year and a pension curtailment gain of £1,019m in 2010," Clarke continued.

Nomura says that the things to look out for in Lloyds' results are: any comments made regarding the progress of the Verde sale; comments around the revenue outlook for core and non-core; asset quality trends and any indications of outlook for 2012; any comments made regarding the progress of the Verde sale; comments around the revenue outlook for core and non-core; asset quality trends and any indications of outlook for 2012;

The operations of bookmaker William Hill should be easier to understand. Usually it involves the punters placing bets and, unless the favourite wins, the bookie making money.

William Hill made things even easier by revealing it expects full year earnings before interest, tax and amortisation (EBITA) to come in at around £274m.

Profit decline at the High Street shops will have been tempered by improved cost control, with Retail profits figured to be down just 4% on 2010. Online profits are expected to jump by around 17%.

Market consensus is for profit before tax of £232.8m on turnover of £1.13bn.

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