London - Britain's Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS) announced the sale of its stake in the Bank of China for 1.6 billion pounds (2.3 billion dollars) on Wednesday.

The Edinburgh-based bank, which also owns NatWest, was effectively nationalized during the banking crisis when the government took a majority share of almost 58 per cent.

RBS acquired the 4.3-per-cent holding in the Bank of China for 900 million pounds in August 2005.

Stock market analysts have suggested investors to ‘sell’ ICICI Bank stock with a target of Rs 415.

According to them, interested investors can sell the stock between Rs 425-430 with a strict stop loss of Rs 438.
 
Today (Jan 14), the stock opened at Rs 440, against its last closure at Rs 426.25 on the Bombay Stock Exchange (BSE) on Tuesday (Jan 13). Current EPS & P/E ratio stood at 37.03 and 12.10 respectively. The share price has seen a 52-week high of Rs 1465 and a low of Rs 282.15 on BSE.

The near-term outlook is bearish for ICICI Bank so analysts have recommended ‘sell’ on this stock.

Beijing  - Cash-strapped Royal Bank of Scotland Plc is seeking to sell off its entire stake in Bank of China Ltd in hopes of raising 2.3 billion dollars, according to a report published Wednesday in China.

Shanghai Daily reported that Royal Bank of Scotland was seeking 1.68 Hong Kong dollars (22 US cents) per share for its 10.8 billion shares in Bank of China. The price would be more than 8 per cent below Bank of China's price at the close of Tuesday trading.

London  - Britain's Barclays bank is to cut at least 2,100 job globally across its investment banking and wealth management businesses, the BBC reported Tuesday.

Barclays, which employs 150,000 staff around the world, is believed to be planning to cut 1,300 jobs at its investment arm Barclays Capital, while 500 positions will be axed at Barclays Wealth.

A further 370 jobs are set to go at Barclays Global Investors. Earlier this month, the bank announced that about 400 jobs would go - mainly in its IT departments in Britain.

Riga  - Latvia's transport minister, Ainars Slesers, called for legislation Monday to punish the Scandinavian banks dominating the Baltic banking sector for "irresponsible activity in handing out money" over recent years.

Speaking on the LNT television channel, the controversial politician blamed Scandinavian banks operating in the region, which include Swedbank, SEB and Danske Bank, for contributing to an economic crisis in Latvia that forced his government to seek a 10-billion-dollar international bailout in December.

Slesers suggested laws could be introduced restricting the banks' rights to pursue debtors and seize assets from defaulters.

London - The British government is set to own more than 40 per cent of the new "superbank" resulting from the merger of Lloyds TSB and HBOS after a disappointing shareholders' response to a recapitalization scheme.

The two banks confirmed Monday that only a small percentage of new shares under the offer totalling 13 billion pounds (19.5 billion dollars) were bought by shareholders at preferential prices under the scheme launched at the height of the banking crisis.

This means that the government will ultimately own 43.4 per cent of the new Lloyds Banking Group, which is due to begin trading next week.