RBS boss Hester sells shares

Royal Bank of Scotland chief executive Stephen Hester has sold £94,000 of shares in order to finance the income tax and National Insurance payable on the release of 610,688 restricted shares. He retains 359,802 of those released shares.

Hester had previously raised £102,000 and £53,566 from share sales in June and August respectively. Both of these sales were said to be to meet income tax and National Insurance liabilities arising from transfers of restricted shares.

Hester still owns 2,167,419 shares in RBS, equivalent to 0.004% of the bank's share capital.

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RBS is one of the worst performers in the FTSE 100 index today. Most of the big European banks have fallen after rating agency Standard & Poor's said that nearly all of the world's big banks are weakly capitalised.

The Bank of England revealed that it provided emergency funding to Royal Bank of Scotland in October and November 2008 that peaked at £36.6bn, before it was paid off in November 2008. The BoE said there's no need for the assistance to remain a secret now that RBS has signed up for the government's Asset Protection Scheme.

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