£1.5bn bid to buy 315 RBS branches on the table

One of the bidders vying to buy 315 branches from Royal Bank of Scotland today insisted its £1.5bn (€1.75bn) plan will pave the way for a “strong challenger bank”.

W&G Investments – a consortium of well-known City names, led by former Tesco finance director Andy Higginson – tabled its formal proposal for the RBS branches after listing its shares on the Alternative Investment Market (AIM) in order to raise an initial £15m (€17.5m) to fund its bid.