Retail sale of Lloyds shares planned for next spring

The Treasury said that UK Financial Investments, the body set up to manage the taxpayer’s stake in Lloyds and RBS after the bailouts, would sell the government’s remaining 13% stake in Lloyds in the coming months.

Britain’s government has recouped nearly three-quarters of the taxpayer cash used in the rescue of the bank through sales of shares to institutional investors. Investors will be able to participate in the share incentive scheme up to a limit of£200 per investor. “This is in line with the government’s armed forces covenant, which ensures that members of the armed forces should not face disadvantage in the provision of public services”.

Lloyds needed to tap 20.5 billion pounds from the public purse to avert collapse at the peak of the financial crisis in 2008, which left the government with a 43 percent stake.

It has been gradually reducing its stake in the bank in recent months and this now stands at less than 12 percent.

Lloyds is now profitable again after years of losses brought on by the acquisition of HBOS, which included Bank of Scotland and Halifax.

‘This final chunk will be the biggest privatisation in 20 years.

As part of this, a sale aimed at private investors will be launched next spring.

Richard Hunter, at Hargreaves Lansdown, said: ‘The buoyant interest in this share sale will only now accelerate with the terms firmly on the table.

From today people interested in buying shares can register at a dedicated website, www.gov.uk/lloydsshares, with the sale expected to happen next year.

Members of the public will be given a 5pc discount to the trading price to encourage them to buy into shares that are already available on the open market.