Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS) has become nationalized

Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS) the Edinburgh based bank has become part-nationalized today as existing share holders rejected the £15 billion in new share offerings, the rejection was widely expected due to the offered share price.

This action will now make RBS the first bank under the £37 billion bailout plan from the government to be part-nationalized. Rival banks, Lloyds TSB and HBOS will join RBS in January when their merger is finalized.

The taxpayer will own 57.9 percent of RBS and its subsidiary NatWest which already lost this year £2.6 billion in paper loss. Shares in RBS were trading at 55p this morning still 11.5p less that the trading price of 65.5p that the government paid.

56 million new shares were brought by existing shareholders with the government acquiring the remaining 22.8 billion shares.

Source: Dailymail