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RBS investors urged to block latest bailout
10.11.09
Angry Royal Bank of Scotland investors today branded the latest government bailout “unnecessary and enormously expensive”.
The RBS Shareholders Action Group, set up to represent small investors, believes the bank — now 84%-owned by the taxpayer — can survive without the Government Asset Protection Scheme and urged shareholders to vote against it.
RBS has insured £282 billion of toxic debts at an initial cost of £700 million a year. Action group director Roger Lawson said: “This proposal is being forced on shareholders… In reality it enables the Government to make a large profit at the expense of shareholders.”
Reader views (2)
The Government and others should bear in mind that, for the most part, shareholders are pension funds, so they are just ripping off the pensions of ordinary people, even if those same taxpayers like the idea of blaming the banks (without realising that they are, themselves, the underlying shareholders). The Government will need to sell RBS back to those same institutions and individuals in a year or two, so it needs to allow RBS to become profitable again quite quickly, or noone will buy the shares.
- Francis Salvesen, London UK
I have to say I think the shareholders action group have some brass neck here!!! RBS was totally broken and should under normal conditions have gone bust. Any viable assets of the business would be striped while the rest would have been terminated leaving the shareholders with pretty much zero. They should feel fortunate that the government did provide the required protection - it protected the shareholders investment. Any other capitalist organization would have certainly focused on their own interests at the expense of shareholders.
In this case surely the government deserves to take some profit rather than the shareholders. The shareholder group sound to me like they are corporate investors or Ghekko like individuals trying to maximize profit at tax payers expense again - groan.
- Junior, Scotland
