Lloyds Banking Back In Private Hands After 2008 Government Bailout

Lloyds Banking Group PLC (ADR) LYG, the venerable British institution that was founded in 1765 but only survived the 2008 global market crash when the government kept it afloat, is back in private ownership.

The institution on Wednesday said the government’s holding company, Financial Investments Limited, cut its ownership to zero as of late Tuesday from a stake that once was 43 percent.

"Six years ago we inherited a business that was in a very fragile financial condition," Lloyds chief executive Antonio Horta-Osorio, who joined Lloyds in 2011, said in a statement on Wednesday.

"Thanks to the hard work of everyone at Lloyds, we’ve turned the group around."

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Lloyds Bank said the government will see a return of 21.2 billion pounds ($27.51 billion) on its investment, according to the BBC, for a profit of 900 million pounds ($1.16 billion).

The bank’s crash cost 57,000 jobs and shuttered 600 branches across the European Union. Shady sales of payment protection insurance, a sort of mortgage insurance, led to the bank’s near-collapse.

Lloyds return to the private sector only leaves the Royal Bank of Scotland Group PLC RBS still in government hands from the financial meltdown. Taxpayers own 73 percent of the bank.