Lloyds Banking Group Plc Chief Executive Antonio Horta-Osorio returned to work after two months' sick leave, facing a potentially even bigger challenge turning around the partly state-owned lender than when he left, according to Reuters. "I am thrilled to be back and I look forward to working with my colleagues again," Horta-Osorio said on Monday during a brief photocall outside the bank's head office on Gresham Street in the City of London. Lloyds has said Horta-Osorio, by his own admission a details-obsessed manager, will change his intensive working style and have fewer people reporting to him than the previous 13. The 47-year-old Portuguese, who took over as CEO in March, had been working on a turnaround strategy including 15,000 job cuts. Since he went sick, the euro zone debt crisis has worsened and worries have grown about the pace of recovery in Britain, where Lloyds is the biggest retail bank and has more than 30 million customers. Horta-Osorio will hold meetings with people from within the bank and from outside over the next few weeks, a spokeswoman for Lloyds said. That is likely to include meetings with leading shareholders. Lloyds warned it may miss financial targets due to the economic turmoil when it posted a third-quarter loss a week after Horta-Osorio's departure, as earnings are hit by lower margins and higher funding costs. -- SPA
