Prime Minister Gordon Brown has said he is confident the takeover of HBOS by Lloyds TSB will go ahead.
Mr Brown made the statement amidst intensifying speculation that Lloyds could renegotiate the deal after HBOS shares fell almost 14% on Tuesday.
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HBOS investors are to get 0.83 Lloyds shares for every HBOS share they own.
Stormy time
HBOS shares have had a rollercoaster time in the past fortnight during which time they've lost more than half of their value.
At one point on Tuesday, shares in HBOS, the UK's biggest mortgage lender, fell 26%. They closed at 122.4p on Tuesday.
But speaking to Sky News, Mr Brown said that after having spoken to those concerned, he was confident the deal would go ahead.
But he was keen to stress that this was a "matter for shareholders not a matter for Government".
Responding to whether the government would bail out HBOS were the deal to collapse, Mr Brown said that the government had already "dealt" with this by helping the merger take place.
"We changed the competition law to make it possible," he added.
When the deal was struck two weeks ago, it was worth Ј12bn.
Full steam ahead?
Analysts are cautious about the likelihood of the deal going ahead.
"The market is implying that [the deal] does not happen," said Alex Potter of Collins Stewart.
But an HBOS spokesperson said it was "full steam ahead" and that it was "the right deal for HBOS shareholders".
On Tuesday, Lloyds said the deal was on track and should be completed by the end of 2008.
"This is a fantastic opportunity to create one of the UK's leading financial services groups," a spokesman said.
Lloyds shares closed 4.3% up on Tuesday.
Markets and banking stocks in particular have been adversely affected by the vote of the US House of Representatives to block the proposed $700bn (Ј380bn) banking bail out, though hopes have been raised that the US Senate will approve a modified version on Wednesday.
HBOS entered into the agreement with LLoyds when its share price fell sharply, following the collapse of US investment bank Lehman Brothers.
A deal between HBOS and Lloyds would create a business with almost a third of the UK's mortgage market with some 3,000 branches.
(BBC)
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