The Edge

Richard Northedge takes on corporate finance

Archive for the ‘RBS’ category

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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Dig deeper into RBS bonus culture

Ministers should not be getting tough with RBS (LON:RBS) for paying bonuses to investment bankers – it should be getting tough with the bank for paying any bonuses at all, even to counter staff at NatWest or Coutts.
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Why reveal RBS, HBOS secret at all?

Nevermind that the Bank of England kept secret for a year its massive loan to HBoS and RBS (LON:RBS), why on earth did it choose to break its silence on the day Lloyds Banking Group (LON:LLOY) announces its record rights issue?
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RBS, Lloyds Banking deliberately running down balance sheets

How do you force banks to lend when their best customers don’t want to borrow? Make them lend to their worst customers?
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RBS finds there is value in discarded brands

British Leyland proved the benefit of not throwing away old brands: each time its image became too tarnished it reverted to one of its old names.
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RBS investors right to sue

The RBS (LON:RBS) shareholders threatening to sue their former directors and advisers over last year’s rights issue have a point. If the board knew the bank’s problems they were fraudulent in seeking new capital and if they didn’t, they should.
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Why not give us our shares in the nationalised banks?

Every UK household has more than £3,000 invested in Royal Bank of Scotland and Lloyds (LON:LLOY) shares, admitted UKFI, the government agency looking them for us, as it spelt out ways of selling them and the problems involved. So why not just give each household its shares?

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Hester pockets Sir Fred’s pension payback

Stephen Hester is set to become Britain’s first £10m nationalised industry boss and all he has to do is double the share price of Royal Bank of Scotland. In a bear market and from a bombed out value, that surely can’t be that hard?
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