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Shareholders of the partly nationalised Lloyds Banking Group have strongly supported a rights issue buying 87% of new shares that were offered. This share issue had been backed by the government who had promised to buy any unsold shares. This means that government stake will remain at 43%. If the share issue had failed the government would have been the majority shareholder and would have owned 65%.

Lloyds Banking Group merged with Halifax Bank of Scotland in September 2008 in a government backed deal. HBOS made a pre-tax loss of £10.8 billion in 2008.