Is RBS’s share consolidations a conjuring trick or a confidence trick?
Are investors really daft enough to think they are better off if they have half as many shares each worth twice as much? Directors seem to think so.
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The Edge
Richard Northedge takes on corporate finance
Archive for the ‘RBS’ category
Are ministers too keen to sell RBS shares at a loss?
Should the government sell its (ie, our) Royal Bank of Scotland plc (LON:RBS) shares at a loss? The suspicion is that Labour would rather wait to make a profit but that the Tories don’t care.
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We know Royal Bank of Scotland Group failed, but what’s the lesson?
By taking four years to produce its report on the collapse of Royal Bank of Scotland Group (LON:RBS), the Financial Services Authority has been able to make the maximum use of hindsight. But if today’s caution was applied, would RBS ever have taken over NatWest?
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Maverick peers should not have overruled courts on former RBS boss
Should we have had a right to know about Sir Fred Goodwin’s affair with a RBS (LON:RBS) colleague before it was revealed in the Houses of Parliament? My answer is that judges should not have protected him with a super-injunction, but that it is not for peers to override the judges.
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RBS: In China, Fred Goodwin might have been guilty
Of course Sir Fred Goodwin will not be punished for captaining Royal Bank of Scotland Group Plc (LON:RBS) when it ran into the rocks.
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BP Plc is not RBS – luckily it still has rivals
BP Plc’s (LON:BP) value has fallen as far as RBS (LON:RBS) has, but this is a different sort of crisis. The bank ran out of money but BP still has oil.
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Prudential should use its strength to cut rights issue fees
The stock market’s reaction to Prudential’s (LON:PRU) planned record rights issue is ungrateful. After all the mega-refinancings to fill black holes in balance sheets, this is a share issue based on expansion rather than rescue.
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Bank pay curbs should go all the way down
Why bother being boss of a big bank if you are not allowed to take the rewards? Lloyds Banking Group’s chief executive has followed Barclays’ and RBSs in bowing to public pressure in rejecting bonuses. Yet while they make the sacrifice, bankers at lower levels keep their windfalls.
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Virgin Money not necessarily a better bank
If we don’t want banks running private-equity operations, why do we want private equity operations running banks? In the eagerness to come up with a new banking model for the post-crash era, we mustn’t simply welcome any alternative.
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