Yahoo Finance RBS awards nearly £16m of bonuses in shares to nine top executives
Loss-making Royal Bank of Scotland has awarded bonuses in shares to its top management team worth almost £16m.
The bank revealed the bonus awards to nine executives an hour after Philip Hammond delivered his budget and said he was “uncertain” as to when the Treasury would be able to sell off any of its 73% stake in the bailed-out bank.
The announcement by the Edinburgh-based bank also included details of £6m in bonuses that have been paid out after being awarded in previous years.
Last month, when RBS reported losses of £8bn for 2016, the bank’s chairman, Sir Howard Davies, had attempted to justify the need to pay bonuses by saying staff should not be penalised for the “sins of the past”.
A year ago, the management team were awarded bonuses worth £17.4m.
Since RBS’s £45bn taxpayer bailout during the financial crisis, it has reported nine consecutive years of losses amounting to more than £58bn.
The bonuses being awarded will not pay out before 2020. They shed light on the payouts to executives outside the boardroom, such as Chris Marks, the head of the investment banking operation, NatWest Markets, who was awarded shares of more than £2m.
Other awards include £1.8m to Alison Rose, who runs the commercial bank, and £1.2m for Les Matheson, the head of the high street banking business.
The pay of Ross McEwan, the RBS chief executive, was disclosed last month at more than £3m for 2016. He was also awarded nearly £3m in shares that he will start to receive from 2021, provided performance criteria are reached.
Hammond has said he will not be able to sell any RBS shares while the bank awaits a penalty from the US Department of Justice for mis-selling toxic bonds in the run-up to the financial crisis and fights with Brussels over the sale of 300 branches mandated at the time of its bailout.
In the documents published alongside the budget, the goverment said it “would continue to seek opportunities for disposals, but the need to resolve legacy issues makes it uncertain as to when these will occur”.
