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The Bank That Almost Broke Britain

Ten years ago on the 7th October 2008, Britain almost went completely bust. The giant Royal Bank of Scotland known as RBS had run out of cash. It was said that they couldn’t even get to the end of the day, the bank was doomed and the government had a mere 24 hours to step in and save the British economy.

There was only time for one shot and if that didn’t work there was simply nothing else that could have been done. This is the extraordinary story of how a small Scottish bank became the biggest in the world, they had assets of over 2.2 trillion pounds.

We hear of the relentless ambition of the head honcho Fred Goodwin, the man who took RBS to the top but who was also notorious for the ruthless manor in which he conducted business, his nickname was even “Fred the Shred”.

For 8 years it was a non stop ride of multibillion pound acquisitions, fast cars and private jets. With the money flowing in, they were spending it as fast as they could earn it but in the space of one day the bank went from boom to bust.

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  1. Can you explain it deeply please