Just 0.25 percent of the new shares have been sold.
The latest share sale from RBS has proved a failure - with just 0.25 percent of new stock being sold to private investors.
RBS is one of the participants in the Treasury's bank rescue scheme - which sees public money being used to buy stakes in banks in order to provide protection against the credit crunch. Under the terms of the plan, the new stock would be offered to investors in the form of a rights issue first, with the government taking up any unsold stock.
As a result of the share sale flop, the bank said today that the government would now own over 57 percent of RBS in taking up the remainder. The main reason why the rights issue proved unpopular was the continuing poor performance of the bank's shares on the London stock exchange.
When the sale closed on Tuesday, the shares cost 54.7p each. However, the rights offer price stood at 65.5p - meaning that it made little sense for investors to buy a new share when they could purchase existing stock cheaper.
"[The bank] received valid acceptances in respect of 55,977,458 new RBS ordinary shares, representing approximately 0.24 percent of the total number of new RBS ordinary shares offered to shareholders," RBS said in a statement. "In accordance with the arrangements… HM Treasury will take up the remaining 22,853,798,818 new RBS ordinary shares."
The government's new RBS stake continues to underperform - with the shares closing at 54p each, or 17.5 percent below the rights offer price, yesterday.
