London — Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS) rose to a 12-month high in London trading after scrapping plans to sell its Williams & Glyn banking unit, removing one of the lender’s biggest obstacles to paying dividends and cutting the UK government’s stake. Britain’s largest taxpayer-owned bank may have reached a "turning point" after running up expenses of about £1.8bn trying to dispose of the 314-branch lender in order to meet EU antitrust rules, analysts at Deutsche Bank led by David Lock wrote in a note to clients on Monday. The shares gained as much as 6.5% and were up 15.4p to 257.8p as of 11am GMT, the biggest advance among major UK banks. Investors are optimistic that RBS is closer to resolving some of the biggest issues that have weighed on the stock, even if it means a greater loss in 2016 results. The bank will take a £750m provision as part of a new plan to address its EU mandate to sell Williams & Glyn, which will include paying rivals to take on its customers. The fourth quart...
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