LONDON (Alliance News) - The UK government has sold a further 1% stake in Lloyds Banking Group PLC, with the state-backed lender continuing its slow return to full private ownership.
According to a stock exchange document, the government's stake has now fallen to 21.99% from 22.98% previously, after selling at 0.99% stake. Lloyds' profitability and return to paying dividends in 2014 has given the government further impetus in selling its shares in the lender.
On February 27, Lloyds said it had made a GBP1.8 billion pretax profit in 2014, compared with a GBP415 million pretax profit in the prior year, which cleared the path for it to pay a symbolic dividend of 0.75 pence per share for the year.
Lloyds required a state-backed bailout after falling into trouble in the financial crisis of 2007-09, when its acquisition of HBOS went awry and the government pumped GBP20 billion into the bank in return for a stake of more than 40% of the bank.
The government is currently selling it shares through a trading plan managed by Morgan Stanley.
Delivering his sixth Budget speech last week, his last before May's general election, UK Chancellor George Osborne said the government plans to sell a further GBP9 billion of Lloyds shares in the coming fiscal year.
By Samuel Agini; samagini@alliancenews.com; @samuelagini
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Lloyds (LLOY)