Government reduces Lloyds stake to below 5%

The government has sold a further 1% of shares, reducing its remaining shareholding to 4.998%.

It has now recovered over £18.5 billion of the £20.3 billion taxpayers injected into Lloyds during the financial crisis.

Earlier this month, the government confirmed that it had reduced its remaining shareholding in Lloyds to below the level of the next largest shareholder.

The government described the latest share sales, conducted through the trading plan, as "a significant milestone".

The Lloyds trading plan initially ran from 17 December 2014 to 30 June 2016, before resuming on 7 October 2016.

The government had planned to make Lloyds shares available to the public, but later abandoned the sale due to "turbulent markets".

Hargreaves Lansdown has since set up a petition asking the government to reconsider its decision to cancel the public sale of Lloyds shares, stating that 374,000 people registered their interest in the shares through its firm alone.

Economic Secretary to the Treasury, Simon Kirby, said: "Since our decision to sell the government’s stake in Lloyds we have recovered over 90% of the money taxpayers injected into the bank during the financial crisis‎. This represents real progress and I am delighted that we are on track to return Lloyds to private ownership."