The man from Montana is set to get a multi-million pound bonus despite Lloyds rocking in the doldrums after the HBOS merger and subsequent collapse of the bank’s share price. To be fair to Daniels, he is likely to see his combined salary and bonus package shrink to a maximum of £3.5m, just over half of the total he would have been awarded including the long-term payout. So he is suffering a bit, well compared to his contemporaries at least. Bob Diamond, the Barclays’ president, could receive close to £30m after a share windfall from the sale of the fund-management arm.

Under the terms of Daniels’ three-year contract, awarded in 2007, he was entitled to an extra £3m at the discretion of the Lloyds remuneration committee. But the bank is thought to be unwilling to pay out while the share price – which hit pre-crisis highs of over 600p –hovers around 46p.

If he can rescue the share price over time, Daniels should still clean up – in 2009, he spent more than £700,000 of his own money buying shares in the bank in support of its rights issue and other fundraisings.