Are the Australian businesses of HBOS "non-core"? If so, Lloyds TSB has them on the market. If not, then they are not for sale.Most likely the Australian management of HBOS is planning on persuading their new owners that they have a great business plan to attack the major banks in this market, that they are executing to plan, and that the disappearance of so many other less well organised competitors only sharpens the opportunity.On the other hand Lloyds may simply think that if principles of competition law don't apply in Britain (and they are being overridden for the merger with HBOS) then why would they in the colonies, and so sell BankWest and any other saleable assets to a member of Australia's banking oligopoly.The announcement by Lloyds TSB yesterday evening of the agreed takeover of HBOS included the vague statement that "Lloyds TSB will actively consider the potential disposal of non-core assets identified in the integration."The context to this statement was Lloyds' plan to lift the "core tier one" capital ratio of the Lloyds/HBOS combination from a pro forma ratio of 5.9 per cent at June 2008 to a target of between six per cent and seven per cent by 2010.One measure of Lloyds' need to preserve capital is that it plans to pay the final dividend for 2008 in scrip. That suggests that raising capital in other ways such as the sale of assets may be an appealing option.There were some scraps of evidence in the investor presentation to support the view that BankWest will be sold.Eric Daniels, managing director of Lloyds, said he was "happy to describe 5.9 as a robust" level of core capital, though in flighty markets and given the need to satisfy the demands of ratings agencies, regulators and investors, it's likely Lloyds will want to buttress this capital ratio as quickly as practicable.Tim Tookey, finance director of Lloyds, said it would be "prudent to accelerate the achievement of the target capital range … and so will pursue the disposal of assets identified as non-core during the integration."Pushed at the investor presentation to elaborate on plans for capital management and asset sales Daniels said, "We have not identified or named any of those non-core assets to date."Asked a second time about asset sales, Daniels said: "What we want to do is, over the next several weeks and months, build the detailed business case to be able to answer a lot more questions … how to monitor and measure the business."In terms of disposals, what we want to do is make very sure we understand what the vision is for the group in better detail; how the pieces fit together in better detail."We are broadly very content on how they look on a first pass basis."The sales pitch in the presentation was all about the merit and consequences (such as job cuts and projected financial benefits) of the Lloyds and HBOS merger in Britain, and only Britain.The shorter-term issue is whether Lloyds pulls the leash on