Investment News RBS Shares Rise By 23 P C Following Yesterdays 67 P C Collapse 2783

Editorial Team

6 years ago

RBS shares rise by 23% following yesterday’s 67% collapse

20 January 2009 / by Rachel Mason

Royal Bank of Scotland shares picked up again this morning, rising by 23.28 per cent.

Yesterday, RBS shares plunged 67 per cent; down to just 11.6p after the bank announced its losses for the full year could hit £28billion – the biggest loss in British corporate history – despite a cash injection of £32billion from taxpayers and shareholders three months ago.

Then the Government announced plans for a further £5billion bailout for the ailing bank which will see the taxpayer’s stake in the group hit almost 70 per cent; but shares were still dumped by city traders which caused a 67 per cent fall in the bank’s value.

By this morning, RBS’ shares had rebounded, rising by 2.7p to 14.3p, however, the bank still has a long way to go to make up for yesterday’s fall, which valued RBS at just £4.5billion compared to a peak of £75million just two years ago.

RBS’ plight has provoked calls for outright nationalisation of RBS, as happened with Northern Rock last year, with MPs urging the Treasury to take over the day to day running of the Bank before things get any worse.

RBS’ losses are so big that they dwarf the previous record loss of £15billion by Vodafone back in 2006.

Causing further controversy is RBS’ admission that it has paid as much as £20billion too much for the Dutch bank ABN Amro last year; the Prime Minister is said to be furious that the UK taxpayer is paying for losses on foreign investments.

He said, “almost all their losses are in the sub-prime markets in America and related to the acquisition of the bank ABN Amro,” reports the Times.

“And these are irresponsible risks which were taken by a bank with people’s money in the United Kingdom.”

RBS, which also owns NatWest, was not the only bank to see its share prices plunge yesterday.

Barclays, which has so far resisted Government funding, saw its shares fall by 10 per cent to 88p, the newly formed Lloyds Banking Group (the result of the Lloyds TSB/HBOS merger) saw its share price fall almost 33 per cent to 65p while HSBC bank, which has also refused taxpayer help and is the only major bank that has managed to raise fresh funds, saw its share price fall 7 per cent down to 501p.