ROYAL Bank of Scotland will spend at least £90 million in defending itself against legal actions by disaffected shareholders The Sunday Times has reported.
The newspaper said the estimated legal costs associated with actions concerning the £12 billion rights issue completed by the Edinburgh-based bank under Fred Goodwin’s leadership in 2008 had ballooned from £42m previously.
Some 12,000 private investors and 11 institutions are suing Royal Bank and four former executives, including Mr Goodwin.
Lawyers for Royal Bank have applied to delay the trial to 2017.
The chairman of RSA, Martin Scicluna, has told The Sunday Telegraph the insurance industry will remain turbulent for years. Speaking after Swiss giant Zurich dropped its proposed £5.6bn bid for RSA in order to focus on sorting out its own general insurance business, Mr Scicluna backed the strategy developed by RSA’s chief executive Stephen Hester, who used to run Royal Bank. “I think we’re got a first-class CEO. I think he is very committed,” said Mr Scicluna.
The founder of the Gocompare online comparison website, Hayley Parsons, made £44 million after selling shares in the firm to Esure, which has a big insurance operation in Glasgow, reports The Mail on Sunday.
Esure acquired the 50 per cent of Gocompare it did not own for £95m in March. It bought 50 per cent of the firm in 2010. Ms Parsons, who went into the insurance business after leaving school with six GCSEs, owned 23 per cent of Gocompare.
The newspaper notes that the firm behind the Butlins holiday empire, Bourne Leisure, grew profits around a quarter last year, to £101.9m from, £82.3m in 2013. The company got a £16.5 million tax credit regarding VAT overpaid on caravan contents.
Plans to develop a Carbon Capture and Storage project linked to a coal gasification plant at Grangemouth refinery may have an increased chance of being delivered after Drax withdrew from a £1bn scheme in England, a sector expert told The Sunday Herald.
Stuart Haszeldine, Professor of Carbon Capture and Storage at Edinburgh University, said the UK Government should reconsider funding the Grangemouth facility if remaining backers of the White Rose development do not proceed with the project at Drax’s plant in North Yorkshire.
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