RBS's Retreat

摘要

With revenues declining and the regulatory cost of doing business rising sharply, investment banks around the world are scaling back and seeking to find the right size and scope for their opera tions. Few institutions are doing so in the face of as much political scrutiny -and interference-as Royal Bank of Scotland Group. RBS is the U.K.'s poster child for banking excess. The bank's breakneck expansion in the past decade - culminating in its ill-fated £48 billion ($76 billion) purchase of ABN Amro in 2007, just before the U.S. subprime mortgage market imploded-left it hopelessly overextended when the financial crisis erupted in full fury after the collapse of Lehman Brothers Holdings the fol lowing year.