RBS shares (5%) being sold- too cheap?

[Snozzwangler]

FredClogs said:

Snozzwangler said:

Would a market price to break even be achievable in the foreseeable future?

Well why not find out and put them on an open market rather than Gideon shifting them out to Tarquin and Oswald for a price agreed behind closed doors?

The illusion that modern "rightist" economic thinking and capitalism as it's practiced in the real world is laughable, once you put people into the equation with their propensity to greed and tribalism and cronyism then it fails. Same old Tories.

A lot of angry text, but nothing factual there.

[Esseesse]

Pan Pan Pan said:

Tony Bliar gave away a large part of the UK`s hard won EU rebate (for absolutely nothing) which has cost the UK taxpayer an average of 3.1 billion pounds every single year since he did so, and it will continue losing this amount for eternity (or until the UK leaves the EU, or the EU itself collapses, a distinct possibility if its second largest net contributor to EU coffers decides to leave)

I've forgotten what it was, but he gave it away for something happening in the EU, which then in the end didn't happen anyway.

[Du1point8]

robinessex said:

The Labour government chicked out. It should have nationalised them. Then sacked all the bloody bankers (opps sorry, wkers). Split off the gambling side (investment, ha, what a joke). And re-created banks, that are a service to the community, not a bloody gambling den for the few, with their noses in the trough.

What do you think they are doing at RBS?

In fact don't answer that as your post proves you know nothing at all.

[Moonhawk]

Could be an attempt to try and stimulate interest in the company and give some confidence back.

It may be better to release some shares at a lower price - to realise gains on the 95% the government still do hold.

[truck71]

zbc said:

Zod said:

This is the first tranche and was designed to test the market appetite. There will be a large retail offering at some stage. There is no point waiting until the share price exceeds the buy-in price as that could take years. Indeed with such a large government holding, there is a good chance it would not do so on any acceptable timeframe.

This. With more shares available in the market it will also make pricing more accurate in future.

Gotcha. Do you anticipate the balance being offered in one go or will they go in batch's?

[JagLover]

Zod said:

This is the first tranche and was designed to test the market appetite. There will be a large retail offering at some stage. There is no point waiting until the share price exceeds the buy-in price as that could take years. Indeed with such a large government holding, there is a good chance it would not do so on any acceptable timeframe.

If at all

Only the financially illiterate would think that crystallising a loss has created it.

[robinessex]

Du1point8 said:

robinessex said:

The Labour government chicked out. It should have nationalised them. Then sacked all the bloody bankers (opps sorry, wkers). Split off the gambling side (investment, ha, what a joke). And re-created banks, that are a service to the community, not a bloody gambling den for the few, with their noses in the trough.

What do you think they are doing at RBS?

In fact don't answer that as your post proves you know nothing at all.

Yea, what are they doing at RBS ? Does anyone know. I do, getting £421m as bonuses. Ian Gordon, a banking analyst at Investec, told the BBC's Today programme: "The taxpayer is being short-changed."

[Pan Pan Pan]

Esseesse said:

Pan Pan Pan said:

Tony Bliar gave away a large part of the UK`s hard won EU rebate (for absolutely nothing) which has cost the UK taxpayer an average of 3.1 billion pounds every single year since he did so, and it will continue losing this amount for eternity (or until the UK leaves the EU, or the EU itself collapses, a distinct possibility if its second largest net contributor to EU coffers decides to leave)

I've forgotten what it was, but he gave it away for something happening in the EU, which then in the end didn't happen anyway.

Bliar gave a large part of our hard won UK/EU rebate away in exchange for much needed reforms to the CAP. They took the money, and then made no changes whatsoever to the CAP. (bit like what Greece has done recently)
But you must remember that at the time Bliar was hoping for a shoo in to the EU presidents job.
By the way he didn't get that either (thank heavens).
So the UK tax payer was sold down the river by labour, and will continue to be paying billions of pounds every year (that it did not have to) indefinitely, and for absolutely nothing.
Now There`s getting value for taxpayers money, Not.

[Otispunkmeyer]

My take on this is that they've held the shares for a while and nothing is budging. If they're waiting for the price to rise so that they can profit, I fear they'd be waiting forever. So I can the see the logic in dumping some shares now to try get the pot stirred. A loss now for bigger gains later? Who knows.

[Du1point8]

robinessex said:

Du1point8 said:

robinessex said:

The Labour government chicked out. It should have nationalised them. Then sacked all the bloody bankers (opps sorry, wkers). Split off the gambling side (investment, ha, what a joke). And re-created banks, that are a service to the community, not a bloody gambling den for the few, with their noses in the trough.

What do you think they are doing at RBS?

In fact don't answer that as your post proves you know nothing at all.

Yea, what are they doing at RBS ? Does anyone know. I do, getting £421m as bonuses. Ian Gordon, a banking analyst at Investec, told the BBC's Today programme: "The taxpayer is being short-changed."

I actually work for them and privy to a little bit more info as I am assisting with the splitting of the bank.

So tell me again what you saw off the TV, Im interested.

[Pan Pan Pan]

Losing billions of UK taxpayers cash is always going to be a disaster, But I just love the way that some want to whinge about Osborne losing ONE billion pounds on the sale of a small fraction of the Governments holding in RBS,in a single transaction, But they kept strangely silent, when Brown lost SEVEN billion pounds of UK taxpayers cash in a single transaction by selling off a large part of the UK`s gold reserves at an all time low price.
Even Osborne didn't wait until the share price was at rock bottom before selling, like Brown did with the UK`s gold.
If anyone wants a comparator between the tories and labours financial aptitude, this would be it.

[Du1point8]

Pan Pan Pan said:

Losing billions of UK taxpayers cash is always going to be a disaster, But I just love the way that some want to whinge about Osborne losing ONE billion pounds on the sale of a small fraction of the Governments holding in RBS,in a single transaction, But they kept strangely silent, when Brown lost SEVEN billion pounds of UK taxpayers cash in a single transaction by selling off a large part of the UK`s gold reserves at an all time low price.
Even Osborne didn't wait until the share price was at rock bottom before selling, like Brown did with the UK`s gold.
If anyone wants a comparator between the tories and labours financial aptitude, this would be it.

Brown didn't need to wait until rock bottom... Winky caused it by announcing to the market, that he was going to flood the market with UK gold, even though we didn't need the money and there was no reason to do it.

Osbourne just needs to keep it quiet so the share price doesnt artificially drop just before selling, unlike the loud mouth tt Winky.

[Gargamel]

Esseesse said:

I've forgotten what it was, but he gave it away for something happening in the EU, which then in the end didn't happen anyway.

The French promised to form a committee to have a serious think about a future reform of the Common Agricutural Policy, I think they met four or fives times in Bali, The Maldives, La Reunion, Vegas and Sydney.

Then they decided that the CAP couldn't be improved in anyway.

[robinessex]

Look, in France, if you have a cow and a bit of grass, you're a farmer. And you get a subsidy, so there. And you know what happens in France if you upset the farmers. They park their bloody tractors all over the place.

[budgie smuggler]

Du1point8 said:

Pan Pan Pan said:

Losing billions of UK taxpayers cash is always going to be a disaster, But I just love the way that some want to whinge about Osborne losing ONE billion pounds on the sale of a small fraction of the Governments holding in RBS,in a single transaction, But they kept strangely silent, when Brown lost SEVEN billion pounds of UK taxpayers cash in a single transaction by selling off a large part of the UK`s gold reserves at an all time low price.
Even Osborne didn't wait until the share price was at rock bottom before selling, like Brown did with the UK`s gold.
If anyone wants a comparator between the tories and labours financial aptitude, this would be it.

Brown didn't need to wait until rock bottom... Winky caused it by announcing to the market, that he was going to flood the market with UK gold, even though we didn't need the money and there was no reason to do it.

Osbourne just needs to keep it quiet so the share price doesnt artificially drop just before selling, unlike the loud mouth tt Winky.

I forget the details, but wasn't this something to do with pressure from Americans? I.e. they needed the gold price to drop for whatever reason, and Gordon helped them out at our expense.

ETA:
http://www.zerohedge.com/contributed/2012-07-10/go...

[robinessex]

Bloody gold. Useless, other than a useful metal for certain applications. We spend a fortune digging out of a hole in the ground, cast it into little bricks, and, er, put it back into a hole in the ground. Called a vault. Brilliant !!

[Smollet]

The sale could be viewed as a loss leader. Only time will tell.

[Pan Pan Pan]

Pan Pan Pan said:

Losing billions of UK taxpayers cash is always going to be a disaster, But I just love the way that some want to whinge about Osborne losing ONE billion pounds on the sale of a small fraction of the Governments holding in RBS,in a single transaction, But they kept strangely silent, when Brown lost SEVEN billion pounds of UK taxpayers cash in a single transaction by selling off a large part of the UK`s gold reserves at an all time low price.
Even Osborne didn't wait until the share price was at rock bottom before selling, like Brown did with the UK`s gold.
If anyone wants a comparator between the tories and labours financial aptitude, this would be it.

Perhaps a further key difference in this, is that the tranche of RBS shares were sold to financial institutions in the UK. When Brown sold off the UK`s gold reserves they went out of the UK entirely, and for good, providing no further financial benefit to the UK.

[Pan Pan Pan]

robinessex said:

Bloody gold. Useless, other than a useful metal for certain applications. We spend a fortune digging out of a hole in the ground, cast it into little bricks, and, er, put it back into a hole in the ground. Called a vault. Brilliant !!

The Mona Lisa is just a piece of ships canvas, with some albumen based pigments daubed on it, but it is regarded as being so valuable as to be priceless.
It is not what an item is which is which is important, it is what value those in the world choose to place on it.

[AJS-]

I thought we were going to make a massive profit from all this?