Lloyds’ share price flops after financial institutions buy up another government slice: Hammond promises to give taxpayers their money back
A further slug of Lloyds Banking Group (Lloyds) shares have been off-loaded by the government, taking the Treasury's interest in the lender to less than nine per cent.
Having flagged his intention to re-ignite the government's sell-off earlier this month, Chancellor Philip Hammond highlighted that this was a further step towards taxpayers getting all their money back after the government bailed out the lender during the financial crisis.
"Selling our shares in Lloyds and making sure that we get back all the cash taxpayers injected into it during the financial crisis is one of my top priorities as Chancellor," he said.
Read more: Government announces final details of Lloyds share sale
The reduction in the state interest in the bank is being undertaken through a "trading plan" that means that slices are sold off to institutional investors, rather than being offered more widely to the general public.
Read more: Angry investors petition government to let the public buy Lloyds shares
Yesterday, retail broker Hargreaves Lansdown launched a petition to protest against the policy after it said it had 374,000 customers who had registered their interest in buying up Lloyds shares.
The Treasury said that the sale means that £17bn of the £20.3bn it injected in the lender has now been recovered, either in the form of share sales and dividend pay-outs.