The government has sold 1% of its stake in Lloyds Banking Group to reduce its ownership of the bailed-out bank to less than 13%.

UK Financial Investments, which manages the government’s stakes in Lloyds and Royal Bank of Scotland, has reduced its holding to 12.97%, Lloyds said on Monday.

Lloyds needed £20.5bn of taxpayers’ money to avoid collapse at the peak of the financial crisis.

The bailout left the government with a 43% stake, which it plans to dispose of entirely by next year.

The Treasury began selling off its stake in September 2013 and has been drip-feeding shares into the market through a trading plan since December 2014.

The latest disposal takes the total recovered by the taxpayer to £14.5bn and follows an earlier sale this month.

George Osborne said: “I am determined to build on this success, and to continue to return Lloyds to the private sector and reduce our national debt.”



The government is making a profit on its sales of Lloyds shares. The chancellor ordered the first sale of the government’s shares in Royal Bank of Scotland, also rescued in 2008, this month at a loss of about £1bn.