‘Numbed and galvanised’ at RBS….

Forget “shock and awe”, among the numerous bloodied banks on today’s corporate battlefield, “numbed and galvanised” are the new buzzwords - at least, they are for Sir Fred Goodwin, chief executive of Royal Bank of Scotland, which on Friday announced a £681m first-half loss, the third-biggest loss in UK banking history and, in efforts to placate investors, said it was close to bolstering its board with three new directors. RBS’s first-half profits were wiped out by £5.9bn of writedowns on assets linked to sub prime US mortgages. Well, according to the FT it was the “third-biggest loss” for UK banks, although there was some confusion about this, as The Times and others reported “second-biggest loss”, while still others claimed it was the “biggest loss”, despite past shockers including Barings and Lloyds. While Wikipedia and... [read full story]