Taxpayer stake in Lloyds Banking Group falls below 2 per cent
THE taxpayer's stake in Lloyds Banking Group has been cut to below 2 per cent as the Government continues to sell down its shareholding in the lender.
UK Financial Investments cut its stake in Lloyds down to 1.97 per cent
UK Financial Investments, which manages the stake in Lloyds, cut its holding by around 1 per cent to 1.97 per cent, seeing the bank edge another step closer to full private ownership.
The sale means more than £20 billion has now been returned to Government coffers since the lender's £20.3 billion bailout at the height of the financial crisis.
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We have now recovered over £20 billion for the taxpayer
This includes around £500 million in payouts to shareholders since the bank resumed paying dividends in 2014 as it has returned to profit growth in recent years.
The stake sale is the latest in a series by the Government, which said in October that it hoped to offload its remaining shares in Lloyds within a year, with the City expecting Lloyds to return to full private ownership by June.
More than £20bn has now been recovered for the taxpayer since the bailout
The economic secretary to the treasury, Simon Kirby, said: "I welcome this further progress in returning Lloyds to the private sector.
"We have now recovered over £20 billion for the taxpayer and are very close to recovering all of the money taxpayers injected into the bank during the financial crisis."