Validator bug: Bad character after <

In my code I have part like this:

    <select>
         <option value="&lt;">Option</option>
    </select>

But anyway validator says:

    Bad character after <. Probable cause: Unescaped <. Try escaping it
    as &lt;.

UTF-8, HTML5

-- 
Sincerely, Nazar Mokrynskyi