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| Version 1 | Version 2 |
|---|---|
| RBS 'ready to privatise in a year' | RBS 'ready to privatise in a year' |
| (35 minutes later) | |
| Royal Bank of Scotland's (RBS) chairman, Sir Philip Hampton, has said the bank will be ready to return to the private sector next year. | |
| In a video statement posted on the bank's website, Sir Philip said he expected the government to start selling shares from the middle of 2014. | In a video statement posted on the bank's website, Sir Philip said he expected the government to start selling shares from the middle of 2014. |
| His comments came as RBS reported a return to profit for the first three months of the year. | His comments came as RBS reported a return to profit for the first three months of the year. |
| It made a pre-tax profit of £826m after racking up losses last year. | It made a pre-tax profit of £826m after racking up losses last year. |
| RBS lost £1.5bn in the first quarter of 2012 and lost £2.2bn in the final three months of last year. | |
| It said losses relating to bad loans were down 26% to £1bn, and it had now seen a 79% reduction in non-core assets since it began restructuring in the wake of the financial crisis. | It said losses relating to bad loans were down 26% to £1bn, and it had now seen a 79% reduction in non-core assets since it began restructuring in the wake of the financial crisis. |
| It also reported a modest rise in lending to businesses, totalling £13.2bn in loans in the quarter. It said £7.8bn was to small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). | |
| Investors reacted negatively to the results. RBS shares fell more than 4.5% in the first 10 minutes of trading on the London Stock Exchange. | |
| Clean up 'almost complete' | |
| Sir Philip described the results as "our best quarterly performance for some time now", opening the door for a return to the private sector. | |
| "Our balance sheet is substantially fixed... our operating profitability has come through quite strongly," he said. | |
| "What we want to do is have a business that is performing well... enabling the government to start selling shares from, let's say, the middle of 2014 on - it could be earlier, that's a matter for the government - but certainly we think the recovery process will be substantially complete in about a year or so's time." | |
| That could mean a return for shareholders after the government invested tens of billions in the bank to rescue it from collapse in 2008. | |
| Speaking to the BBC's Today programme, RBS chief executive Stephen Hester said RBS will be looking "much more like a normal bank" next year, when the "cleanup will be substantially complete". | |
| "We can deliver an RBS than can do its job, and is cleaned up, in the not-too-distant future," he said, but added that the sale of the bank would be a decision for the government. | |
| He also said he was "open" to the idea of dividing the bank into a good and bad bank to rid itself of bad assets - a plan backed by the Bank of England governor Sir Mervyn King. |