Nog wat kerstgedachten van Mr. Hester en het vooruitzicht voor 2013: het kan vriezen of het kan dooien. Misschien toch nog een opleving, vooral in januari, maar daarna weet niemand waar het schip strandt. Niet echt: "vrolijk kerstfeest", maar misschien is het wel goed om enigszins pessimistisch te blijven. Iedereen neemt aan dat de bomen in 2013 niet tot in de hemel zullen groeien. Dus misschien kan het allemaal wat meevallen als de verwachtingen niet al te hoog zijn.
Een gedeelte uit The Telegraph van 23 dec.:
The year 2012 was one that Stephen Hester would perhaps rather forget. For the chief executive of Royal Bank of Scotland, it began with a political furore over his £1m bonus, which he eventually gave up rather than be the subject of a House of Commons vote.
The bank was then hit by a major technical fiasco in late June which saw millions of customers unable to access their accounts for almost a week. Then came the cancellation of its sale of 316 branches to Santander.
To add insult to injury, Hester was also personally upbraided by the Rt Rev Justin Welby, the incoming Archbishop of Canterbury, for failing to explain the lender’s “duty to society”.
In what has been a damaging week for the already down-at-heel banking sector, further headaches emanated from the Parliamentary Commission on Banking Standards which called for the pending ring-fence between retail and investment banks to be “electrified”.
And Hester must have grimaced when he saw damaging emails emanating from UBS’s landmark £940m Libor fine from global financial regulators in which one trader promised in return for a fix: “I’ll pay you, you know, $50,000, $100.000... whatever you want... I’m a man of my word.”
As the year ends with the prospect of a multi-million dollar fine over RBS’s role in the Libor-fixing scandal, Hester must hope such damaging revelations are not in store for his bank when it comes time to settle with the Financial Services Authority (FSA) and others.
But if 2012 has been Hester’s own annus horribilis, there are few signs that 2013 will be any better.
Although it ends the year relatively strong in share price terms – closing at 315.2p on Friday, having hit a year high of 317.7p on Thursday – there are a number of headwinds which the bank faces in the new year over which Hester has little control. As a result, senior sources within the bank admit that 2013 could be just as tough as the year that is coming to an end, with one candidly admitting that RBS is “running hard to stand still”. If that is the case, what does it mean for Hester, and his determination to not only turn the bank’s finances around, but also to put it in a position where at least part of the Government’s 82pc stake can be sold? Could 2013 be the year that Hester finally puts the state-owned bank’s troubles behind him? Or will it be the year that Hester finally calls it a day?
Goede dagen en een voorspoedig 2013 toegewenst en laten we vooral de mensen niet vergeten die geen enkel aandeel in deze wereld hebben.