Restructuring for RBS; over 20K jobs to go

The Royal Bank of Scotland is all set to go for a dramatic rescue restructuring, wherein assets worth billions of pounds will be put up for sale and there will be more than 20,000 job cuts, media report says.

"The Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS) is to be split into a "good bank" and "bad bank" in a dramatic rescue restructuring in which assets worth several hundred billion pounds will be put up for sale," the Sunday Times said.

Besides, RBS chief executive Stephen Hester will cut costs by more than one billion pound a year, a move expected to lead to 20,000 job losses, more than half of which will be in Britain, the newspaper reported.

The group still employs more than 1,80,000 people around the world, including 1,00,000 in Britain. RBS has already cut more than 12,000 jobs in the past year.     

The report further said "the asset sell-off would be one of the biggest ever seen, and would lead to a substantial reduction of the banks one trillion pound balance sheet."

Meanwhile, Hester is expected to outline his cost cutting plan of over one billion pound this week as he unveils Britain's biggest-ever corporate loss of up to 28 billion pound.

This week's results are expected to confirm a loss of 7-8 billion pound and a further write-down of up to 20 billion pound on its acquisition of the Dutch bank ABN Amro.