Week ahead: Lloyds Banking Group and RBS AGMs

LLOYDS Banking Group and Royal Bank of Scotland directors will be grilled at their AGMs this week on speculation over government plans for a pre-election sell-off of taxpayer stakes.

RBS has its AGM in Edinburgh tomorrow after offering the coalition an early election boost by predicting the UK government should be able to start selling its 81 per cent stake in 2014.

RBS chairman Sir Philip Hampton said the institution’s recovery would be “substantially complete” by the middle of 2014. Lloyds – which also fuelled talk of UK government plans to offload shareholdings after its first quarter figures also showed further progress in recovery efforts – also has its meeting in Edinburgh, on Thursday.

More sales cheer is on the cards from Dixons Retail, owner of PC World and Currys, when it updates on trading on Thursday as it continues to benefit from the demise of rival Comet.

Enterprise Inns – which is the UK’s biggest pub landlord, despite having no sites in Scotland – reports interim results tomorrow.