LONDON (Reuters) - Royal Bank of Scotland <RBS.L> said on Wednesday chief financial officer Ewen Stevenson had resigned from his role and it would start looking for a successor immediately.
The resignation was announced on the morning of the bank's annual shareholder meeting in Edinburgh and amid speculation the British government, which owns 70 percent of the lender, will soon sell a stake.
The effective date of departure for Stevenson, who is also resigning as executive director, will be confirmed in due course. Stevenson resigned to take up an opportunity elsewhere, the bank said.
"The Board and I are sorry to learn that Ewen has decided to move elsewhere. He will go with our thanks for a job well done and our good wishes," Chairman Howard Davies said in a statement.
Rescued in a 45.5 billion pound bailout by Britain's government in the 2008 financial crisis, RBS has spent the last decade shedding trillions of dollars worth of assets and dealing with the legal and regulatory hangover from its pre-2008 global expansion.
Following a $4.9 billion pound settlement in May with U.S. authorities over the mis-selling of mortgage backed securities, the last of RBS's major legal problems resulting from the crisis era, the government is expected to further reduce its stake.
(Reporting by Dasha Afanasieva; Editing by Silvia Aloisi and Mark Potter)
