Taxpayer ‘stuck with banks for the next decade’

[scooterscot]

The state could hold stakes in RBS and Lloyds for a decade amid fears that tough ICB reforms could scupper a sale altogether

British taxpayers face the prospect of holding stakes in two of the country’s biggest banks for at least a decade, senior City sources say.

Stiff new regulations, coupled with stringent reforms to the sector proposed by the Independent Commission on Banking (ICB), have killed investor appetite for British bank shares.

Taxpayers are already sitting on paper losses of close to £30 billion on the state’s 83% shareholding in Royal Bank of Scotland and its 41% holding in Lloyds Banking Group.

Two years ago UK Financial Investments (UKFI), the government shareholder body, valued the stakes at £65 billion.

[PAH]

Good, I want the govermin to keep bailing out the banks while the bank has my warchest.

Besides, I only pay minimal tax, seeing as I'm on minimum wage.

[Freamon]

If they both had their investment arms split off and then had their crap assets truly laid out in the open, the remaining good parts would probably be worth more than the whole bank is worth today. This will never happen because the boards and the government are deluded into thinking that if they wait long enough everything will sort itself out. Whereas in reality the bad side of the banks will keep eating away at them, like a virus destroying its host, until the whole lot is worthless.

[AtW]

Nothing high inflation can't sort out in a long run ...