(6 August 2015 – Scotland) UK Financial Investments (UKFI) – the body that holds the government’s stake in Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS) said it would offer around 600 million shares, representing 5.2 percent of the bank, to institutional investors.
The government is expected to make a loss of about £1 billion (A$2.13 billion) on the sale.
The UK owns 78.3 oercebt of RBS after bailing it out with about £45.8 billion of taxpayer cash in 2008.
Following the sale, Its stake will fall to 73.2 percent.
Chancellor George Osborne said in June he would begin to dispose of shares as soon as possible, aiming to sell at least three-quarters of the stake over the next five years.
The sale is being handled by Citigroup, Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley and UBS.
UKFI and the Treasury said they would not sell any more RBS shares for 90 days after the sale without the consent of the bookrunners.
RBS was briefly one of the world's biggest banks by assets after expanding with takeovers and aggressive lending prior to the financial crisis.
The bank has more than halved its assets to £945 billion from £2.2 trillion over the past seven years while also cutting its staff globally from almost 200,000 to just under 110,000.