RBS board has held CEO successor talks: report

Directors of Royal Bank of Scotland have held recent talks on identifying a replacement for its chief executive Stephen Hester, Sky News said on Sunday citing sources.

Sky News said Philip Hampton, Chairman of the state-backed lender, called a meeting of the bank's non-executive directors earlier this month to inform them he was drawing up a list of potential replacements for Hester, including Standard Chartered finance director Richard Meddings.

RBS declined to comment when contacted by Reuters.

Sky News said there was no suggestion that any of Hampton's candidates had been approached about replacing Hester and cited sources saying it was prudent for RBS's board to be examining options for the leadership of the company through what is expected to be a lengthy re-privatization process.

The report said that UK Financial Investments, the body that manages Britain's stakes in RBS and Lloyds Banking Group , were involved in the consideration of potential successors for Hester.

Hester has previously indicated that he expected to stay at RBS to steer the bank through the process of the government beginning to sell off its 81-percent stake. Industry and political sources have said it is keen to begin that process before the next general election in 2015.

(Reporting by Neil Maidment and Matt Scuffham; Editing by Nick Zieminski)