Lloyds Banking Group Wednesday reported a loss of £4 billion ($6.8 billion) for the first half of 2009 — much of it incurred from its takeover of troubled UK rival HBOS earlier in the year. The banking group took a charge of $22.8 billion, mainly for bad loans — 80 percent of which came from HBOS. “Our first half loss was driven by the high levels of impairment,” Group Chief Executive J Eric Daniels said in a statement.
