London - The British government is to own a majority share of almost 58 per cent in the Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS) after shareholders failed to take up a rights issue to inject new capital into the ailing bank. RBS announced Friday that only 0.24 per cent of the new shares offered - or 56 million shares - were bought under the scheme offered by the Edinburgh-based bank.
This means that the government - and the taxpayer - will pay about 15 billion pounds (22.5 billion dollars) for a majority stake of 57.9 per cent in the bank.
RBS, which also owns the NatWest bank, is among banks which have taken up a massive recapitalization offer made by the government in October.
The bank's problems have been linked to both the exposure to subprime mortgages and the ambitious takeover of Dutch group ABN Amro a year ago.
