UK to sell 50% of RBS stake within two years

Britain is planning to sell half of its stake in Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS), worth £16bn (€23bn), within two years of a possible first sale in September, sources with knowledge of government thinking have said.

UK chancellor George Osborne has indicated that he wants to begin reducing his government’s £32bn stake in the coming months, but the sources said the shares will be sold at a faster rate than previously expected, making it likely the government will take a substantial loss on the initial sales.

Final decisions on Britain’s biggest privatisation have yet to be made and progress will depend upon RBS’s performance, market conditions and ongoing investigations into past misconduct, the sources said.

Britain pumped £45.8bn into RBS to rescue the bank in the 2007/09 financial crisis, leaving the government with a 78% stake. At current share prices the government is sitting on a loss of £14bn. RBS chairman Philip Hampton, who is leaving the bank this year, and former chief Stephen Hester had both said previously that it could take several years for RBS to return to private ownership, given the amount of shares to be sold.

Although Osborne had been reluctant to sell at a loss, the bank’s improving performance and the increased political leeway afforded by the Conservative party’s majority election victory in May, have persuaded him now is the time to sell.

The finance ministry declined to comment on whether Osborne will talk about an RBS stake sale when he delivers Britain’s Budget tomorrow, the first since May’s election victory.

Boosting the chances of a faster-than-expected RBS privatisation is a British and Irish economic recovery that has enabled the lender to recover debts it had previously written off and to lift operating profit by 16% in the first quarter.

The RBS revival has attracted interest from investors looking to benefit from Britain’s economic recovery, including many in the US, banking sector sources said. Analysts expect the bank to have surplus capital by the end of 2016, offering the prospect of a high dividend yield in the longer term.

“Investors are really keen. They understand what RBS wants to be,” one investment banker said.

RBS, which briefly became the world’s biggest bank after an acquisition binge under former CEO Fred Goodwin, has undergone a complex restructuring to focus on lending to British households and businesses.

However, the turnaround has taken far longer than that of state-backed rival Lloyds Banking Group, which the UK government is selling at a profit en route to a planned return to full private ownership next year. A first sale of RBS shares to financial institutions such as pension funds and insurers is earmarked for September and could raise about £1.5bn.