SMART Telecom is not shy about announcing its frequent contract wins in the broadband market but investors seem distinctly underwhelmed by events. The Aim-quoted share price reached a high for the year of 36.75p in mid-February, but since then the graph has been moving steadily downwards.

At the close of trading in London on Friday, Smart Telecom was at 23.05p, showing a loss of 37% in three months. One of the more interesting features of the share register is the presence of Cantor and other sellers of contracts for difference (CFD).

Clients of these firms account for 17% of Smart Telecom’s equity, a factor that can only add to share price gyrations as contracts are rolled over or sold out.

CFD customers are usually to be found on the register of companies where shares are expected to fizz like champagne. That’s why so many of them were caught offside when Elan went from hero to zero at the end of February. Smart Telecom, it has to be said, is looking distinctly flat.

All mine

MinMet, the €26m gold production minnow, has been disposing of a number of assets in recent months. This has led to speculation that MinMet itself might be on the block. Investors looking forward to some corporate activity, however, may have to hold their fire.

There are no indications that a takeover is on the cards but there are rumours that MinMet is on the verge of introducing a strategic investor — a move that may also see an injection of additional management resources. The shares closed the week unchanged at 3c with heavier than normal volumes recorded on Thursday. It is hard to see why an investor would buy in at anything other than market price.

Lloyds’ options

For a fleeting moment seven years ago, Lloyds TSB was the world’s biggest bank by market value. Now, worth £26 billion, it doesn’t feature in the global table and even in Britain it has been overtaken by rivals such as HBOS and Royal Bank of Scotland.

It was hoped that Eric Daniels, appointed chief executive three-and-a-half years ago, would arrest the decline with his organic growth strategy, but it appears he, too, is stuck in a cul de sac.

Nobody can deny that Lloyds, with its 16m customers, still has a great franchise but its strengths are not being harnessed. Insiders say Daniels has a habit of micro-managing. In terms of extracting costs that is good news but if shareholders are looking for change, Daniels is falling short. Investors tend to buy Lloyds shares for their 7.2% dividend yield. A cut would cause an outcry and this is making life tougher for Daniels.

Daniels has three options. He could limp along like Abbey and get taken over in much the same way. He could use his Dutch chairman to court a partner in continental Europe or America. Or he could try something more structural, a strategy that will require more radical change at board level. Staying still is not an option and, if the economy stalls, the dividend could be under threat — it is 1.3 times covered and costs £1.9 billion a year to maintain.

Lloyds’s millstone is still Scottish Widows, for which it overpaid. The long-term savings environment is finally starting to recover and this could make Widows more attractive, but it will be a long slog. Lloyds could release up to a £1 billion by selling some of Widows’s closed-end funds or going for a securitisation. For a bank with the pedigree of Lloyds, its slow demise is a great shame.