RBS to sell legacy loans worth £1.6bn

The Royal Bank of Scotland is planning to sell £1.6bn of legacy loans, marking the largest property loan sale of its kind in the UK.

If successful, it is likely other UK banks will follow, to reduce exposure to a market still recovering from the crash a few years ago, the Financial Times reports. The manoeuvre - codenamed Project Monaco - forms part of a wider sale of loans in the bank's non-core banking unit, which could see as much as £44bn of property loans sold or wound down by 2014. RBS has approached a small number of private equity groups to sign a non-disclosure agreement, which would open the doors to firm bids for the legacy loans. These firms include Lone Star, Starwood Capital and Blackstone. Howe...