Bank holding in insurer will fall to less than 50%

Direct Line Group

Royal Bank of Scotland will further reduce its stake in Direct Line by selling a further 15.3%, or 229.4 million ordinary shares, of the insurer via a placing with institutional investors.

The sale would raise £482.4m on last night’s closing share price of 210.2p. The deal would bring its stake down to just under 50%.

A further “over allotment option” would see it sell a further 22.9 million shares, worth £48.1m.

The bank sold 34.72% of Direct Line when it floated the business on the London Stock Exchange in October.

RBS has to sell all of Direct Line by the end of 2014 under conditions set by the European Commission.

The latest sale is being run by Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley and UBS, who were also joint bookrunners for the flotation.

 

 

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