Govt could take five years to offload bank stakes

The Government could take until 2015 to offload the bulk of its stakes in the UK's partly nationalised banks, longer than many fund managers were expecting.

According to the BBC, UK Financial Investments' could take another five years to sell its £40bn investment in RBS, Lloyds and Northern Rock - despite expectations it could recoup the taxpayer money sooner. Schroders head of UK equities Richard Buxton says while it is speculated the Government would like to offload a small stake in the banks before the upcoming election, he believes the move would be untenable. The £1.8bn Schroder UK Alpha Plus manager, who holds both RBS and Lloyds, says the stakes could begin to be sold by about 2013 - at a time when earnings start to normalise at th...