London - Gains in Royal Bank of Scotland shares bolstered Britain's top equity index on Thursday on news it would be returned to private hands sooner than expected, while Royal Mail stock fell after the government sold half its stake at a discount.
The blue-chip FTSE 100 index was up 0.3 percent at 6,852.55 by 08h55 GMT, still 4 percent below a record high hit in April and 4.2 percent up on the year.
Royal Mail was the biggest FTSE loser, down 4 percent after the British government said it would sell half of its remaining stake in the company, leaving it with about 15 percent of the postal service.
The stock fell to 496 pence from 516.5 pence after government sold the shares at 500p each, a discount to the Wednesday's close.
On the upside, Royal Bank of Scotland gained 1.3 percent after finance minister George Osborne said Britain would start selling its 32-billion-pound stake in the next few months, having previously said the shares would only be sold at a profit.
“I think they're going to want to put this one to bed... They've recovered some of the losses, but not all of them, and they can just sort of draw a line under it and move on,” ETX Capital sales trader Mark Priest said.
Elsewhere in the sector, Standard Chartered fell 2.4 percent, giving away some of the previous session's 5.8 percent rise as hopes that Osborne would change bank levy system were disappointed.
Among other notable movers, Vodafone and Johnson Matthey both traded without their latest dividend payouts and lost 3.2 percent and 1.2 percent, respectively.
Reuters