Royal Bank of Scotland accept government's £20 million bailout
It will come as no surprise to learn that Royal Bank of Scotland shareholders today accepted the government's offer of a £20 billion bailout which is required to ensure the bank has the chance to grow in the future. While you might have thought that shareholder anger would have been pointed towards the board of directors this was not the case with the Treasury in particular coming for some fairly harsh criticism from shareholders.
It seems as though the heartfelt apology from the company's Board of Directors yesterday has done the trick and they moved much of the attention from their table. There was also more sympathy for shareholders, many of whom are on fairly small wages, who had used their funds to acquire shares in the company. Unfortunately while many of these employees had been expecting to use their shares to pay for their retirement, after a fall of over 90% in value of the company this does not appear to be a viable option at the moment.
This is really the first time we have seen anger directed towards the Treasury in what has been perhaps the most dramatic of times in the UK financial markets for nearly 100 years.
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