RBS ready to be privatised in 2014

After reporting £826million quarterly profits, banking giant RBS said that the firm will be ready to go private again in one year’s time.

11:00 06 May 2013

It looks like Royal Bank of Scotland(RBS) is finally on the mend after the 2008 crash. After reporting £826million quarterly profits, the bank, which is 82per cent owned by taxpayers, is ready to be privatised again.

 

RBS chairman Sir Philip Hampton has revealed that the bank could start buying back shares as early as next year.

 

Meanwhile, Stephen Hester, chief executive of the bank said that he is confident that the Treasury would get back more than the £45 billion RBS spent on bailing out four years ago.

 

He told The Independent: “We will have substantially completed the restructuring of RBS within a year to a year and a half. Given the size of the Government’s shareholdings in RBS and Lloyds they will have to be sold in several stages.

 

“I would be confident that by the end of that process the average proceeds will be in excess of the price paid.”

 

However, analysts aren’t sure that the Treasury will make immediate profitable sale as shares are down 18p at 289.3p. RBS’s reported Q1 2013 profit is the first quarterly profit since the third quarter of 2011.