ROBERT BARR
Associated Press Writer
LONDON – Royal Bank of Scotland Group PLC, government-owned after being bailed out, reported a loss of 3.6 billion pounds for 2009 but beat expectations and said the peak of bad loans from the economic crisis may have passed.
CEO Stephen Hester, who along with his deputy waived any bonus for the year, cited improvements but said a “hard slog” lay ahead.
The loss compared to a 24.3 billion pounds loss, a British corporate record, racked up by RBS in 2008 following the disastrous takeover of the Dutch Bank ABN Amro. RBS wrote off 16.9 billion pounds in goodwill in 2008 related to ABN Amro and in RBS’ NatWest subsidiary.