There is, you might think, not much point in buying something now when you can get it cheaper next year. At this stage, the structure of the sale of the government’s 79 per cent stake in Royal Bank of Scotland is largely guesswork, but the assumption is that some shares will be slipped out to City institutions, along the lines of the gradual diminution of the stake in Lloyds Banking Group. Some time, probably next spring, there will be a Sid-style sale of a large stake to the retail investor.
This will have to be priced at some sort of discount. Let us assume, along the lines of the sale of rival bank TSB, that the shares go out with a one-for-ten loyalty share, to