Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS) provided relief for investors and the underwriters of its £12 billion rights issue this morning, confirming it had received acceptances for just over 95 per cent of shares.

In a short statement, the bank said the underwriters, Goldman Sachs, Merrill Lynch and UBS, would be left with under 300 million shares, worth around £600 million to place.

The announcement allays fears that the company’s shares would collapse if the underwriters were left with a large chunk of stock that they would struggle to sell.

RBS’s shares have fallen 25 per cent since Sir Fred Goodwin, the chief executive, announced the 200p discounted rights issue in April. They came under pressure from retail investors selling their rights because they could not afford to subscribe and from US investors that are likely to sell because they hold American Depositary Receipts under which they are not allowed to exercise rights.

However, sentiment towards the bank improved last week, with several analysts upgrading their recommendation on the group.

The bank said that, as of the 11am deadline on Friday, it had received acceptances in respect of 5,823,635,440 new RBS ordinary shares, representing approximately 95.11 per cent of the shares offered, and that its underwriters would be seeking subscribers for the remaining 299,375,022 shares.

The shares were unchanged at 245p in early trading.

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