The Government could see the first returns on the multi-billion pound bail-out of British banks as early as the first half of 2012 after senior figures close to the process revealed plans for a £5bn share sale for the Royal Bank of Scotland.

The sale to institutional investors and sovereign wealth funds from the Middle East and Far East would be the first of a staged process of selling the Government's 83pc stake in the bank. With a market capitalisation of £46.1bn for RBS at Friday's closing price, £5bn would represent about 13pc of the taxpayer stake in the bank.

The sources revealed that the share sale would not be the "Tell Sid" style retail offering as happened with the mass privatisations in the 1980s of companies such as British Telecom and British Gas.

During those processes members of the public were encouraged to buy shares in what became part of Baroness Thatcher's attempt to make Britain a "share-owning democracy".

That would be left to a later stage of the process, which could be made up of as many as four.....Read more HERE

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