There has been significant public interest, with more than 62,000 people signing up for information on buying shares on the day it was announced, according to Treasury sources. Canaccord Genuity upgraded shares of Lloyds Banking Group PLC from a “hold” rating to a “buy” rating and set a $100.00 price target for the company in a research report on Tuesday, July 7th.
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By this morning Hargreaves Lansdown had reported more than 120,000 investors registering with the firm for e-mail updates on the Lloyds sale.
The retail sale will take place next spring.
The government has been selling down the taxpayer’s original 41per cent stake in Lloyds, recouping £15billion of its £20bn outlay, and now owns under 12 per cent. It is only offering £2bn to small investors – compared with £3.3bn in the Royal Mail sell-off – which represents only 3.6per cent of the bank.
‘This reflects the hard work undertaken over the last four years to transform the Group into a simple, low-risk and customer-focused bank that is committed to helping Britain prosper’.
Lloyds Banking Group PLC (LON:LLOY) traded up 0.97% on 5 October, hitting GBX 77.29. The trading plan was launched on 17th December 2014 and is expected to end no later than 31 December 2015.
Separately, RBS applied to convert 51 billion B shares into ordinary stock, a change that won’t affect earnings and has no impact on the government’s 72.9 percent stake, the Edinburgh-based lender said in a statement.
The government started offloading its stake in RBS earlier this year, shedding 5.4 percent of its holding in the bailed-out lender.
The Lloyds share sale could help create a new generation of investors in the stock market and a positive shift in financial culture, the UK’s wealth managers said this week.
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The shares were sold at 330p each, well below the 502p a share level at which the government bailed out RBS, leading to a $1.1billion loss on the deal. The heightened volatility saw the trading volume jump to 2,186,607 shares.
