RBS Chief Executive Stephen Hester tells Channel 4 News he would have been prepared to take the bank through privatisation, but that “would have been the end of a journey”.
In his first television interview since his departure as chief executive was announced, Mr Hester said he had “mixed feelings” about leaving the bank before privatisation”, but was “very confident” taxpayers could be repaid for the money they spent rescuing RBS.
He said RBS was no longer “a threat to itself and the economy”, and that his job had been “bruising, difficult, challenging”, as well as “rewarding”.
He defended the £1.6m pay-off he will receive when he leaves at the end of the year, saying it was low in commercial terms.
He said: “Of course I want RBS to be successful and if I have something to look back on it will be that.
“The only issue is what was the right moment, what was the right way I could serve RBS, and so I would have taken it through privatisation.
“But to do that for me would have been the end of a journey and I think that if the right person can be found, for someone for whom it is the beginning of the journey to lead RBS, it is the better way.”
Mr Hester said the restructuring of the bank was “largely done” and that “the nation is much better off as a result”.
He said “one of the good things” about leaving the post was that journalists would no longer be able to ask him questions about his salary and benefits.
“Of course, wrangles about bankers’ pay are not gong to stop with me and other people can carry on that baton.
“I think if you look at that commercial world, people may or may not like the commercial world, but if you look at it and what we have accomplished at RBS, the size of the job, the challenges and the successes and look at what I have been paid for it, it would be low in a commercial sense.
“It would be high in a societal sense and so this is an argument that will go in circles for years to come I’m sure.”
Mr Hester was credited with saving “a bust bank” by Chancellor George Osborne, who commended his work at the head of an institution that received a multi-billion pound government bailout in 2008.
“When Stephen Hester took on the job at RBS in 2008 it was a bust bank with a broken culture and posed a huge risk to financial stability. RBS today is safer, stronger and better able to support its customers,” Mr Osborne said.
Mr Hester will stand down in December, after five years in the role. In a statement, he said he was leaving the bank in a good condition: “We have reduced the bank’s balance sheet by nearly a trillion pounds, repaid hundreds of billions of taxpayer support, and removed the imminent threat that this bank’s size and complexity posed to the UK economy.”
Mr Hester’s reform of the bank included “one of the largest and most complex company restructurings ever seen”, according to an RBS statement.
Philip Hampton, chairman of RBS, also praised the work of his chief executive in turning round the bank.
“In the midst of a major crisis, he accepted the challenge of stabilising the bank, turning it around, and putting us in a position where we can begin to plan for returning the organisation to the private sector. His achievements have been considerable,” he said.
Mr Hester will leave RBS with a year’s salary (£1.6m) and a shareholding anticipated to be worth £3-4m.
Mr Osborne hinted that he would give more details on plans to privatise RBS in the next few months when the Parliamentary Commission on Banking publishes a report.