RBS: 0.24 percent of new shares sold to existing shareholders

Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS) has now confirmed that due to the £20 billion bailout by the government the British taxpayer is now the majority share holder with almost 60 percent share holding of the bank that less than a year ago, before the credit crunch hit was the UK’s second biggest.

RBS offered existing shareholders £15 billion worth of shares, but investors declined the offer that run until this morning, leaving all the new shares in the hands of the UK government. This now means the taxpayer owns 57.9 percent of the Edinburgh based-bank.

Due to Royal Bank of Scotland’s share price trading much lower than the 65.5p offer price only a few investors took the bank up on its offer, with just 0.24 percent of the 56 million new shares being offered being brought.

More bad news for RBS investors, they will not see any dividend payouts until the government is paid back £5 billion worth of preference shares that they also acquiring.

Source: Guardian