Investec upbeat about Lloyds after government share sale

Investec has reiterated its 'buy' recommendation on Lloyds after the government sold a further tranche of shares in the state-backed lender on Wednesday.The broker, which kept an 85p target price for the shares, said that Lloyds offers "reasonable upside for a relatively low-risk stock"."After a mere 2.2% two-day bounce from the stock's 2014 year-to-date low, UK Financial Investments (UKFI) has moved more quickly and in slightly larger size than we expected, reducing its residual stake from 32.7% to 24.9%," said Investec analyst Ian Gordon.The placing of 5.56bn shares was at a price of 75.5p, a 5% discount to Tuesday's closing price of 79.1p.When the UKFI first placed an initial 4.3bn shares in September at 75p, Gordon said the timing of the transaction was "impeccable" with a number of material legacy issues still to be addressed at the bank.He said that despite a significantly improved underlying performance at the bank, this was "drowned out" by further PPI provisions, alongside other incremental conduct costs, disposal losses, restructuring charges and deferred tax asset write-downs."Today, we see the near-term outlook for the group as very different. Despite a similar share price, and lower levels of Other Income, the group has already returned to delivering core balance sheet growth - notably in mortgages and the SME segment - augmented by sharp margin expansion."Gordon believes that the market should begin to respond positively - "after the initial digestion" of the UKFI sale - to a sharp return in profit in the first quarter of 2014 and beyond.Investec expects Lloyds to report a profit before tax of £1.1bn for the first quarter.The stock was down nearly 5% at 75.25p by 12:20 on Wednesday.BC