RBS pays £5m for 11 bankers - papers

Anger over bank bonuses gathered a new head of steam yesterday as the country's top regulator urged lenders to pare back their payouts and news emerged of a £5m "golden hello" for 11 traders at the state-backed Royal Bank of Scotland.

RBS, 70% owned by the taxpayer after a £20bn bail-out, has poached 11 fixed income traders from Bank of America Merrill Lynch with guaranteed first-year bonuses of roughly £500,000 each. Full story...

US BANK Morgan Stanley has agreed to sell its retail asset management business to investment manager Invesco in a deal worth $1.5bn (£913m) according to the BBC.

The sale of the loss-making division will allow Morgan Stanley to focus more on its institutional clients. Full story...

INSURER Aviva expects to pocket 1.2 billion (£1.1bn) to fund acquisitions and internally generated growth, when it floats its loss-making Dutch unit, Delta Lloyd, in Europe's largest share offering this year reports The Scotsman.

The insurance giant said yesterday that Delta Lloyd shares would be offered on Euronext's Amsterdam exchange at between 15.5 and 19 each, valuing the business at 2.6-3.1bn.

About 42 per cent of Delta's shares will be sold, leaving Aviva as the group's biggest investor, with a 58 per cent holding. The balance is held by Dutch charitable trust Fonds NutsOhra. Full story...