LYCOS RETRIEVER 
Royal Bank
built 633 days ago
By 1981, Royal Bank was the fourth largest bank in North America, with assets of CAD 53 billion. Although one-third of that total was attributed to its international activities, the bank had lost its early advantage in many foreign markets to other institutions. One of Frazee's first orders of business was to strengthen the bank's influence in the United States. He poured new capital into the Royal Bank and Trust Company, in New York, and increased its staff. A second Frazee priority was the development of a Global Energy Group, based in Calgary, to provide technical consultation as well as capital for energy-related projects on an international basis. To manage its newly aggressive stance, the bank reorganized into four groups, two responsible for Canadian retail and commercial business, and two to handle corporate banking and international operations.
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During the late 1970s and early 1980s the Royal Bank was the subject of three separate takeover approaches. In 1979, Lloyds Bank, which had previously built up a 16.4% stake in the Bank, made a takeover approach for the remaining shares it did not own. The offer was rejected by the board of management on the basis it was detrimental to the Bank’s operations. However when the Standard Chartered Bank, proposed a merger with the Bank in 1980, the board of management responded favourably to the offer. Standard Chartered Bank was headquartered in London, although most of its operations were in the Far East, and the Royal Bank saw advantages in creating a truly international banking group. Approval was received from the Bank of England, and the two banks agreed a merger plan that would see the Standard Chartered acquire the Royal Bank and keep the UK operations based in Edinburgh.
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Update of August 9, 2004: not unlike a vulture, Royal Bank of Scotland has another proposed acquisition in the U.S., of Lynk Systems, a "merchant acquiring business," for $525 million. The announcement came days after Fred The Shred Goodwin said that RBS' U.S. operation is focusing on completing the $10.5 billion acquisition of Charter One Financial that was signed in May. He said RBS would make no large U.S. deals soon, adding that after buying some of Mellon Financial's U.S. operations, it took the bank about 9 months to start seriously looking for another deal. RBS Chairman George Mathewson -- who's ... a director of Santander, at least for now -- whined that barriers to cross-border deals still exist.
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Royal Bank ... has ``nominal exposure'' to Canadian non- bank asset-backed commercial paper funds, which have been unable to roll over most debt since last week. The bank backs some of these funds for emergency financing.
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Royal Bank had made some small moves into the U.S. market in the late 1990s, such as the 1998 purchase of Atlanta-based Security First Network Bank, the world's first Internet bank. It was in the early 2000s, though, that Royal Bank made a concerted push south of the border via a string of acquisitions. In April 2000 Prism Financial Corporation, a Chicago mortgage broker, was acquired for $115 million. Prism operated 159 retail branches in 25 states. Royal Bank next took a big step into the U.S. insurance industry by acquiring the insurance subsidiaries of Liberty Corporation of Greenville, South Carolina, for $580 million. Through this November 2000 deal, the bank took over Liberty Life Insurance Company and its 625 sales agents and Liberty Insurance Services Corporation, an administrator of third-party life and health insurance and a provider of underwriting, billing, and claims processing services.
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Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS) opened at 10.52. So far today, the stock has hit a low of 10.38 and a high of 10.70. RBS is now trading at 10.68, down 0.26 (-2.47%). The stock hit its 52 week high of 11.50 in October and set its 52 week low of 10.25 in October. Since its initial offering last month, the stock has been steady but below 11.60 level. Royal Bank of Scotland shares have been falling today after a Lehmen analyst initiated the stock with an "Underweight" rating.
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Royal Bank