UK Treasury Raises £15.5bn from Lloyds Bank Share Sale

The same can’t be said of the discounted sale of Lloyds shares to the public.

The chancellor said that the sale of the Lloyds stake had now raised £15.5bn for the taxpayer.

The sale is set to be the biggest privatization in Britain since the 1980s, when Margaret Thatcher’s government sold £3.9B worth of shares in British Telecom and £5.6B worth of British Gas shares.

There has been significant public interest, with more than 62,000 people signing up for information on buying shares on the day it was announced, according to Treasury sources.

The government is expected to continue its sell-off to the market over the coming months, before making £2 billion worth of shares available at a discount to ordinary investors, ending any involvement in Lloyds.

Lloyds Banking Group plc is engaged in supplying financial services to individual and company customers in the United Kingdom as well as in certain places overseas.

Yesterday, leading wealth manager Hargreaves Lansdown said it alone had registered 120,000 potential investors.

‘This reflects the hard work undertaken over the last four years to transform the Group into a simple, low-risk and customer-focused bank that is committed to helping Britain prosper’. JPMorgan Chase & Co. reaffirmed a buy rating on shares of Lloyds Banking Group PLC in a research report on Monday.

Elsewhere, the government also moved forward its plan to sell off its stake in taxpayer-owned Royal Bank of Scotland (LON:RBS). At 45.5 billion pounds, the bailout of RBS was the world’s most expensive during the financial crisis.

Part of its stake has been converted from non-voting shares into ordinary shares to make them easier to sell. The government received criticism from a few corners for selling the shares at 330p each, almost 35% less than the 502p paid for the shares in 2008.