THE UK Government has offloaded the last of its stake in Lloyds Banking Group and recorded a £900 million book profit its investment.
The disposal means the giant lender returns to full private ownership nine years after the Government provided a £20.3 billion bailout for Lloyds following its acquisition of HBOS.
Lloyds said the sale represented the successful delivery of the strategy to transform the core business into a simple, low risk, UK-focused bank, which was master-minded by chief executive Antonio Horta-Osorio.
“Six years ago we inherited a business that was in a very fragile financial condition. Thanks to the hard work of everyone at Lloyds, we’ve turned the Group around,” said Mr Horta-Osorio, who took charge in 2011.
He promised Lloyds, which owns Bank of Scotland and Scottish Widows, would use its strong position to help Britain prosper.
The Government has received £21.2bn for its shares in Lloyds since it started selling off its initial 43 per cent holding in 2013. The total includes £400m dividends received after Lloyds resumed payouts to investors in 2015.
Laith Khalaf, senior analyst at the Hargreaves Lansdowne investment business, said with Lloyds back to business as usual the withdrawal of a large seller from the market should be positive for its share price. But the taxpayer is still nursing a loss on the bailout after taking account of the associated borrowing costs.
The Chancellor has said the Government may only be able to offload the 72 per cent stake it holds in Royal Bank of Scotland at a loss. RBS got a £45bn bailout.
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