The UK government currently owns the majority of the shareholding of one very big bank, and a large minority holding of another; RBS https://www.google.com/finance?q=RBS (£2.5B assets), and Lloyd's Banking Group https://www.google.com/finance?q=LON%3ALLOY (£1.2B assets). Now admittedly the Government was basically forced into buying that stock to prop up those banks, but still own them they do.