Treasury sells RBS shares for £2.1bn, but taxpayer makes £1bn loss

The Treasury has sold the first tranche of shares in Royal Bank of Scotland for £2.1 billion, but the taxpayer has made a loss of around £1 billion on the sale.

UK Financial Investments, the body that holds the Government's RBS stake, said it had offloaded 5.4% of RBS at 330p a share - far short of the 502p price paid by the Government when it bailed out the bank at the height of the financial crisis.

The move has reduced the Government's stake in the group from 78.3% to around 72.9%.