Lloyds (LON:LLOY) returned to profitability in 2010, posting a pre-tax profit of £2.2 billion compared to the previous year’s loss of £6.3 billion.
This was the part-nationalised bank’s first pre-tax profit since it was bailed out by the UK government.
However, Lloyds posted a net loss of £320 million after making a £2.83 billion profit in 2009, equivalent to a loss per share of 0.5 pence, largely due to write downs of bad loans in Ireland.
Underlying total income increased by 3 percent to £23,641 million, including core business income growth of 7 percent.
The outlook for the current year was generally positive with Lloyds stating that “given the flexibility and capacity we have for core business growth, we continue to believe that the group has strong medium-term prospects, notwithstanding the economic and regulatory headwinds that we face in 2011”.
Lloyds reported good progress in reducing its balance sheet and the group’s risk, stating that its “prudent approach” to restructuring of the existing book and our risk standards to all new business is being reflected in the more predictable performance of these portfolios.
The bank also said that it remains on target to deliver its target of £2 billion of run-rate cost synergies from the integration of HBOS by the end of 2011.