LONDON – Royal Bank of Scotland Group PLC named Rory Cullinan head of a new division that will house the firm’s bad bank and oversee the initial public offering of its U.S. Citizens Financial Group Inc. unit.
Capital Resolution Group from January will also be responsible for the IPO of 314 branches the bank has to sell to comply with European Union state-aid rules, RBS said in a statement today. Cullinan, 54, led the bank’s non-core division, which has eliminated about 221 billion pounds ($362 billion) of assets since the end of 2008.
RBS last month reached an agreement with the U.K. government to create a bad bank to oversee about 38 billion pounds of its toxic assets. With the next election in 2015, Chancellor of the Exchequer George Osborne needs to convince voters he is recouping the 45.5 billion-pound cost of RBS’s government bailout, while giving the Edinburgh-based company room to clean up its balance sheet.
RBS, Britain’s biggest government-owned bank, gained 0.4 percent to 320.5 pence at the close of trading in London, valuing the company at 36.1 billion pounds.
