Birmingham Midshires signs coming down

Birmingham Midshires signs are to be taken down from the company's Wolverhampton headquarters - five years after the mortgage lender's branches were closed down.

New signs bearing the Lloyds Banking Group name will be put up in their place this week.

But today bosses insisted the move was a simple branding exercise and did not signal job losses and will not have an impact on customers.

Lloyds, which has owned Midshires since January last year, said the move reflected the fact that the site is now home to staff from Midshires, Halifax, Lloyds TSB and Cheltenham & Gloucester.

The office, the city's biggest private employer, has so far survived the radical shake-up at Lloyds Banking Group which has cost 22,000 jobs in the past two years since the merger with Halifax Bank Of Scotland, which owned Midshires.

Last summer Lloyds announced the Birmingham Midshires' base at Pendeford Business Park, which employs around 1,400, would remain.

Previously, there had been a question mark placed over for the future of the savings and loan business.