The government has reduced its stake in Lloyds Banking Group to less than 5 per cent.
The latest sales mean the government has recovered more than £18.5bn of the £20.3bn taxpayers injected into Lloyds during the financial crisis, once share sales and dividends received are accounted for.
Economic secretary to the Treasury, Simon Kirby, said: “Since our decision to sell the Government's stake in Lloyds we have recovered over 90 per cent 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.”
Earlier this month HM Treasury announced that it was no longer the largest shareholder in Lloyds – with BlackRock taking that position.
The Lloyds trading plan initially ran from 17 December 2014 to 30 June 2016.
Former chancellor George Osborne had planned to sell the final Lloyds stake in spring last year through an offering to retail and institutional investors, with the former receiving a 5 per cent discount plus a bonus share for every 10 held for more than a year.
But this was put on hold at the beginning of this year because of market volatility.
Mr Osborne’s successor, Mr Hammond, announced on 7 October 2016 that more sales of Lloyds shares would be made through a trading plan.
At that time Mr Hammond scrapped Mr Osborne’s plans of selling the shares to retail investors completely, citing market volatility.
Financial Conduct Authority rules mean Lloyds Banking Group must announce when the government’s shareholding in the bank has crossed through a one percentage point threshold.
All proceeds from the sales are used towards the national debt.
