EquitiesNov 25 2015

Treasury confirms £25bn RBS share sell-off

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Treasury confirms £25bn RBS share sell-off

The government has committed to selling over £25bn of shares in the Royal Bank of Scotland over the next Parliament, and to fully divesting from Lloyds Banking Group by next spring.

In documents published today (November 25), the Treasury added it aims to sell a further £5.8bn worth of shares in 2020/21.

UK Financial Investments, which manages the government’s stakes in the banks, told the Treasury this summer that a sale of at least £25bn worth of shares over the current parliament was feasible.

The Treasury has already recouped £16bn from the sale of Lloyds shares and £2.1bn from its initial sale of RBS shares earlier this year. The latter sale cut the government’s stake in the bank to 73 per cent.

Its holding in Lloyds, meanwhile, has dropped to just over 10 per cent ahead of a planned retail share sale in the coming months.