 "Britain delays full sale of state-rescued Lloyds bank")
Britain's government is to delay selling the final tranche of shares in state-rescued Lloyds Banking Group (LBG) owing to turbulence in financial markets, Finance Minister George Osborne said today.
With LBG returning to health after its 2008 bailout at the height of the financial crisis, the Conservative government of Prime Minister David Cameron had been gradually reducing its 43% stake in the lender, returning billions of pounds to the state coffers in the process.
The stake currently stands at a little more than 9%, ahead of the bank's full privatisation.
"I want to create a share-owning democracy," Osborne, the chancellor the exchequer, said in a statement today.
"It's also my responsibility to ensure economic responsibility. With these turbulent financial markets, now is not the right time to have that sale," he added.
Osborne said the sale would occur "when the time is right".
The government had intended to start offloading the final tranche of shares before the second-half of 2016.
