Is RBS over the worst?
The bank loses billions again, but this could be the year it lays its haunting 'legacy issues' to rest.
If you thought you were getting a bargain in August when George Osborne sold £2.1bn worth of RBS shares at a 2.3% discount, you may want to avoid looking at the following chart.
Rollercoasters can't keep going down forever, can they? Source: Yahoo Finance
RBS shares have fallen 44% from their summer high. The bank has been tormented by ‘legacy issues’ from the bad old days – charges over the likes of PPI and toxic mortgages, and the heavy costs of dismantling its Fred Goodwin-era investment bank. Investors underestimated quite how painful and persistent these problems would be. Shares fell 9% just this morning to 222p on the news the bank lost £2bn last year, its eighth consecutive full-year loss.