LONDON —The former Royal Bank of Scotland chief who infuriated the British public by leading the bank to near-collapse and then walking away with a fat pension was stripped of his knighthood Tuesday, a rare punishment that puts him in the company of criminals and dictators.
Queen Elizabeth II “canceled and annulled” Fred Goodwin’s knighthood for the key role he played in the failure of RBS, a financial disaster that helped trigger the recession in Britain and forced taxpayers to bail out the bank, the Cabinet Office said. Knighthoods are rarely revoked, but the government said Goodwin “had brought the honors system into disrepute” and that the “scale and severity” of the impact of his actions made it an exceptional case. He joins a group that includes British spy Anthony Blunt, Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe and Romanian dictator Nicolae Ceausescu.
Goodwin built the Royal Bank of Scotland into one of the world’s largest banks and was knighted in 2004. The Associated Press
