 According to analyst Colin Morton, "the takeover was an absolute disaster".In March 2009, it announced that it had made US$9.3 billion of profit in 2008 and announced a £12.5 billion (US$17.7 billion; HK$138 billion) rights issue to enable it to buy other banks that were struggling to survive.However, uncertainty over the rights issue's implications for institutional investors caused volatility in the Hong Kong stock market