Treasury ‘determined’ to sell Lloyds shares to the public this year

The news means the amount the government has now received £318m in dividends from the bank it bailed out at the height of the financial crisis at a cost of £20.5 billion.

The news came as it was also confirmed that the Treasury will pres ahead with a public sale of shares in Edinburgh-based Lloyds by next March.

The Government had hoped to sell at least £2 billion in shares to investors this spring but it said the sale will now be completed within this financial year.

Chancellor George Osborne had been compelled to postpone January’s retail offering amid stock market turmoil.

But Harriett Baldwin, economic secretary to the Treasury, said she was “determined” the Government will make the shares available to the public this year.

Ms Baldwin said: “The government has already recovered over 80 per cent of its original investment in Lloyds and today’s dividend payment takes the amount we’ve recovered from the bank to over £16.8bn.

“I am determined to build on this success by making Lloyds shares available to the public this year, so that we can build a share-owning democracy and continue to reduce our national debt.”

Taxpayers still own more than nine per cent of Lloyds, but the government will only sell the shares when the stock rises above the 73.6p break-even level at which the bank was bailed out.

They closed at just over 67p on Tuesday.

Meanwhile, Antonio Horta-Osorio, the bank’s chief executive, has acquired, after the settlement of income tax and national insurance contributions, 1,437,096 shares in the group following the vesting of his 2012 deferred bonus award.

The shares were worth £958,000.

Mr Horta-Osorio is required to hold the shares for a further two years, until March 2018.

The shares were awarded in March 2013 with vesting possibly after three years, subject to the group’s share price reaching 76.3p for a given period of time, which was satisfied on November 20 2013.