Royal Bank of Scotland disclosed a £469 million loss for the third quarter, after restructuring costs and “legacy issues” overshadowed progress.

The bank made a £2.5 billion loss for the first nine months of the year, failing to show concrete recovery after its £45.5 billion government bailout in the wake of the financial crisis. Its £469 million loss was more than double expected by analysts and compares to a sizeable profit made in the same quarter last year.

RBS also confirmed that it would miss the deadline to sell its Williams & Glynn bank, set by the European Commission for the end of 2017. It was ordered to sell the banking business to prevent RBS having too dominant a position in the market, and has already missed the first deadline of November 2013 without receiving a penalty from the European body.

Earlier this week Clydesdale Bank confirmed it had made an offer for Williams & Glynn, after a deal with Santander fell through.

Investors reacted positively to the news, with shares up 5 percent in early trading. RBS chief executive Ross McEwan commented:

“We’ve said that 2015 and 2016 would be noisy as we work through legacy issues and transform this bank for customers.

“These results reflect that noise. Our core business results were good with a £1.3bn adjusted operating profit, our best quarter since 2014.

“The core business has now delivered on average over £1bn in adjusted operating profit for the last seven quarters.”

RBS is still 73 percent owned by the government following its emergency bailout in 2008.

28/10/2016