Lloyds to offer TSB at a discount

Britain’s Lloyds Banking Group has priced the stock market listing of its TSB business at below book value, aiming to attract investors amid a flurry of new issues and make progress on a much-delayed, costly sale.

Lloyds, 25% owned by the British government, is obliged by European competition regulators to sell the 631 branches which now form TSB as a condition for their approval of state aid received by the bank during the financial crisis five years ago.

Lloyds had to ask the European Commission to extend an original deadline of November 2013 to the end of 2015 after a planned sale to the Co-operative Bank collapsed, sparking a parliamentary inquiry, and the cost of the entire sale process has risen to £1.6bn.