Philip Hammond has abandoned his predecessor’s plan to offer the public cut-price shares in Lloyds Banking Group by announcing he will sell off the government’s remaining 9% stake in the bailed-out bank on the stock market. Hammond will now sell shares directly into the market with the aim of getting rid of the government’s stake in its entirety in the next 12 months. “Returning Lloyds to the private sector is in the interests of the bank, taxpayers and the country as a whole. The Treasury said it would not make a loss because it had already raised about £16.9bn from previous sell-offs of Lloyds shares. Osborne had said he would sell shares to the public at a 5% discount on the prevailing market price – a pledge made in October 2015 when the shares were trading at nearly 78p.

Source: The Guardian October 07, 2016 13:45 UTC