The U.K. government said Tuesday it has sold a 7.7% stake in Royal Bank of Scotland Group PLC, pushing on with a plan to shed its ownership in the Scottish bank at a loss. The U.K. Government Investments Ltd, which controls the British government's 70% stake in RBS, placed 925 million shares at 271 pence each with institutional investors and sold the stake for GBP2.51 billion ($3.34 billion). The sale price was a 3.5% discount to RBS's closing price on Monday. Originally a share sale was slated for last week, but those plans were disrupted by the market gyrations following political upheaval in Italy and Spain. The British government has previously said it aims to shed around GBP3 billion of RBS shares by March 2019.However bankers warn it could take years for the government to fully extricate itself from RBS.via