RBS: Is crisis-hit banking giant reawakening?

Alex Schlich, senior fund manager in the UK equity team at Sanlam FOUR, believes seven years after the crash, RBS is once again a bank worth investing in

The government sold the first 5.4% of its stake in Royal Bank of Scotland in August, an event that happened sooner than many expected. It mainly came as a bit of a surprise to investors as the sale price of 330p was below what it was when the government rescued the bank in 2008. Like many, we had not looked at RBS for a while - there did not seem much point with the government owning almost 80% of the company, plus it had been loss making for six years. And our view was fairly typical of the market: returns were poor, capital was weak, restructuring was difficult and had years to go, ...