Lloyds Banking Group, the partly UK state owned group, said it has placed around £450 million ($678.2 million) of shares after it announced yesterday it will sell stocks in St James’s Place, the wealth management business.

After the placing, the banking group said it expects to continue to account for St James’s Place as an associate, reflecting the group’s share of the company’s profit within its income statement. The statutory profit after tax but before minority interest attributable to St James's Place in the group's accounts for the year ending 31 December 2012 was £76 million.

Some 77 million shares have been placed at £5.8 per share, the UK-listed bank said in a statement to the London Stock Exchange today.

Settlement of the placing will happen on 29 May. When it is completed, Lloyds will hold 110 million St James's Place shares (approximately 21 per cent of the company's issued share capital), it said.