The taxpayer’s stake in Lloyds Banking Group PLC (LON:LLOY) has fallen below 5% after the government sold a further tranche of shares in the lender.
Lloyds said the UK Treasury has reduced its shareholding to approximately 3.57bn shares down from the 4.24bn shares it held previously.
The sale brings the government’s stake in Lloyds down to 4.998%.
The price at which the shares were sold was not disclosed. In early trading, Lloyds’ shares on the FTSE 100 index were off 0.58p at 65.29p.
UK Financial Investments, which manages the government's stakes in bailed-out banks, resumed the sale of shares in Lloyds last October, having halted them almost a year earlier because of market turbulence.
Lloyds was rescued with a £20.5bln bailout during the 2007-09 financial crisis, which left the taxpayer owning 43% of the bank.
The Treasury has now recouped over £17.5bln of that total, once the programme of share sales and dividends received have been accounted for.
Prior to the Brexit vote, which disrupted markets, the plan had been to offer the rump of the government’s shareholding to private investors, but the idea got dumped, in favour of selling the stake over a 12-month period to City institutions.
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