On Friday the bank raised its cost-cutting target to over GBP900 million for the year, up from GBP800 million. “It certainly has a few impact on us in terms of the feel around the organisation but I’m not going to give any view on the outcome, we’ll wait and see what comes through from the FCA”, he said.
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Restructuring costs hit just over £1 billion in the quarter. This year they made a £146m loss.
Following the sale of a 5.4 per cent stake in RBS in August, the Government now has a 72.9 per cent stake in the bank. It is pulling out of 25 countries, lowering the number that it operates in to 13. The Group noted that its attributable profit included the gain on loss of control of Citizens, of 1.15 billion pounds. RBS started the disposal of its $2.7 billion stake in the US consumer unit late Thursday, in a move that would bring its capital ratio to 16.2 percent.
Royal Bank of Scotland Group PLC (LON:RBS) had its stock rating indicated as “Buy” in a report released today by analysts at Investec Capital. Lloyds said on Wednesday that pretax profit before one-time items dropped to 2 billion pounds in the third quarter from 2.2 billion pounds a year earlier, as it set aside 500 million pounds to cover PPI compensations. RBS now owns less than 21 percent of Citizens.
In time, of course, this will become less of an issue as RBS starts to take a shape that chief executive Ross McEwan and new chairman (and MT regular) Howard Davies want.
The bank, which is 73% owner by the taxpayer, revealed litigation costs of £129 million for the quarter, principally relating to mortgage-backed securities.
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“The days of global domination are over”, McEwan told reporters on a call on Thursday. The move would require shareholder approval, he added. Non interest income was 996 million pounds compared to 1.27 billion pounds.
