ROYAL Bank of Scotland has increased the size of stake it is selling in United States bank Citizens Financial after strong demand from investors.
The move means RBS could be in line to net up to £2.5 billion.
Earlier this week RBS said it would sell an initial 115 million shares with the possibility of 17.25 million more being made available.
But it has now confirmed 135 million will be going on to the market while an additional 20.25 million could also go.
The shares are being sold at $23.50 per share.
RBS will see its stake in Citizens cut from more than 70 per cent to somewhere between 41.9 per cent and 45.6 per cent.
Ross McEwan, RBS chief executive, said: "The sale of Citizens is an integral part of the RBS capital plan. It will help us to create a stronger, safer, UK focused bank that can better serve the needs of its customers.
"This successful sale keeps RBS on track to meet our obligations and complete the divestment of Citizens by the end of 2016."
Citizen shares floated on the New York Stock Exchange in September at a price of $21.50.
Separately, the Treasury has sold further shares in Lloyds Banking Group, taking its holding in the lender to less than 22 per cent.
The latest disposal, equivalent to around one per cent of Lloyds, netted The Treasury more than £500m.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article