London (Standard&Poor's) Aug. 8, 2008--Standard&Poor's Ratings Services said today that its ratings and outlooks on The Royal Bank of Scotland PLC (AA/Negative/A-1+) and holding company The Royal Bank of Scotland Group PLC (RBSG; AA-/Negative/A-1+) were unchanged following the announcement of a net loss of £761 million in the first half of 2008. The results announced, while poor, are in line with our expectations and were principally driven by the very large net write-downs in the global markets business, totaling £5.9 billion. These mainly reflect lower valuations on collateralized debt obligations and U.S. residential mortgage assets, together with reserves against exposures to monoline insurers. These items aside, profit declined by only 3% compared with the pro forma
