US Edition 
Government extends Lloyds drip-feed share sale
The Treasury will continue to sell shares gradually in the market ahead of a "Tell Sid" public offer next year
The Treasury is pressing ahead with plans to fully offload the once bailed-out Lloyds Banking Group by extending its share sale scheme by six months.
UK Financial Investments, which manages the sale of Government-owned assets, said that so-called “trading plan” - which drip-feeds Government shares in Lloyds to the market - would end "no later than June 30 2016" and would be followed by a share sale to ordinary retail investors.
The Conservatives have pledged to sell billions of pounds of Lloyds shares to the public next year at a discount of at least 5pc.
Since December 2014, the Government has been steadily selling Lloyds shares to the market in a process handled by investment bankers at Morgan Stanley. The current plan was scheduled to end this month.
The gradual disposal has taken the public stake in the bank to around 9pc, a significant reduction from the 43pc stake the Government was handed in return for its £20.5bn bailout of Lloyds during the financial crisis.
The Treasury said the shares have sold at an average price of "over 81p", which it says is "well above the average 73.6p paid for the shares".
"The trading plan has been a huge success, with over £9bn raised for the taxpayer so far," said Chancellor George Osborne.
"This means we have now recovered over £16bn in total, and we now own 9.2pc of the bank. I’m today extending the plan to build on this success and recover further money for the taxpayer."
Some of the bank’s existing shareholders have called on the Government to rethink plans to sell down the bulk of its remaining stake via a discounted public sell-off, to ensure taxpayers get the best possible deal.
However, the Chancellor is understood to be keen on running another “Tell Sid” style privatisation of the shares, in the biggest public offer since the British Gas campaign nearly 30 years ago.
"This will allow hardworking people to buy a stake in our economy and help to build a share owning democracy," Mr Osborne said.
More than a quarter of a million retail investors have already applied for cut-price Lloyds shares as part of the Government's plans to return the bank into private hands.