Royal Bank of Scotland hotel plans

Edinburgh, May 1 (Bloomberg) Royal Bank of Scotland Group, the UK's largest corporate bank, aims to buy hotels and retail properties worth as much as £4bn to profit from the trend to separate the ownership of physical assets from their operation. The bank said it is in talks with five hotel groups following February's acquisition of 11 properties from Hilton Group for £312m. "I would be slightly surprised if we haven't done one or two other (hotel) transactions by the end of the year," Steve Pateman, Royal Bank's managing director for leisure, retail and services, said in an interview. ...