Lloyds Banking Group said underlying profit for the first half of the year rose 2% to £3.56 billion (£3.49bn) and has hiked its interim dividend by 15% to 1.22p.
Chief executive Charlie Nunn said: “We continue to make great progress in our strategic delivery. Guided by our purpose of Helping Britain Prosper we are building a highly differentiated franchise that is successfully delivering for all our stakeholders.
“We delivered sustained strength in our financial performance in the first half of 2025, with good income and balance sheet growth, alongside continued cost discipline and robust asset quality, leading to strong capital generation.
“We are well positioned to generate higher, more sustainable returns. Given that, we reaffirm our 2025 guidance and remain confident in our 2026 commitments.
BT
BT has posted a weaker financial performance but said its roll-out of full-fibre broadband had passed one million premises for a sixth consecutive quarter.
The build rate of 81,000 per week means it has now reached 19 million premises, including 5.2 million in rural locations.
Adjusted revenues fell 3% to £4.9 billion in the three months to 30 June as weaker handset sales in Consumer and challenging international trading offset the benefit of the full-fibre roll out in Openreach and price increases.
Pre-tax profits fell 10% to £468 million, which was primarily due to an increase in net finance costs and depreciation.
Chief executive Allison Kirkby said the company remains on track to deliver its targets for this year, next year and the end of the decade.
The company has appointed Patricia Cobain as chief financial officer from next year. She currently holds the same role at Virgin Media O2.
Reach
News group Reach, owner of the Daily Record, Mirror and Express, said revenue declined 3.4% to £256m in the first half.
Print revenue came in 4.8% lower at £194.1m (HY24: £204.0m), while digital revenue continued to grow to £61.1m (HY24: £60.0m), up 1.8%.
Both print circulation revenue £144.3m (HY24: £149.9m) and print advertising revenue £27.7m (HY24: £32.7m) outperformed the volume decline, which remains broadly in line with historical trends.
Adjusted operating profit of £44.8m was slightly ahead of the prior year with an improved operating profit margin of 17.5% (HY24: 16.8%).
Year-on-year page views, a measure for on-platform audience volumes, were up 6% with the scaling of our content hub driving improved levels of productivity and more effective distribution.
The interim dividend is maintained at 2.88p
Chief executive Piers North said: “Today marks the beginning of a new chapter for our business, as we launch the priorities that will fuel our growth. These include initiatives to reach new audiences, increase our video content and accelerate our tech and AI capabilities. Crucially, we’ll do more work to diversify our revenues, putting a serious focus on adding subscriptions to our revenue mix.
“Over the past six months we have performed well. Our audience growth has been driven by our innovative content and distribution hubs, our in-house recommender tools, and our US expansion. Digital revenue continues to grow, supported by reliable print revenues, despite a challenging market and set against a strong events comparator.
“With our market leading scale, editorial impact at both national and local levels, and strong operating profit margin, we are confident that our priorities will set us up for future success.”
Centrica
British Gas owner Centrica said hat it had swung to a statutory operating loss of £69m in the six months ended 30 June.
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