British government resumes its sale of Lloyds shares
At the current pace, the bank will be completely in private hands again by May
London — The British government has reduced its stake in Lloyds Banking Group to just below 5% as it aims to return the bank to full private ownership in the next few months. UK Financial Investments Limited (UKFI), which manages the government’s stake, resumed share sales in October, having halted them for almost a year due to market turbulence. UKFI had reduced its stake by about 1% of the shares in issue, to 4.998%, it said on Monday. The government was left with a 43% stake in Lloyds after a £20.5bn taxpayer-funded bail-out during the 2007-09 financial crisis. Although the government is now selling the shares at below the average price it paid for them, it has so far received about £18.5bn back. UKFI is selling about 1% of shares on average about every three weeks. This means at the current rate the bank should be fully returned to private ownership by about May. The slump in Lloyds shares at the start of last year forced the government to postpone a plan to offer cut-price shar...
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