RBS chairman says bank preparing for 2014 state sale

LONDON (Reuters) - Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS.L) is positioning itself for a potential public offering of its state-held shares in 2014, Chairman Philip Hampton told Reuters on the sidelines of the British Bankers' Association's annual conference.

"The exercise we're engaged in at the moment is to get the business into a shape that is most attractive for an offer for sale to the British public and international, probably, in 2014," Hampton said.

Hampton said the structure of the sale would be up to the government.

"We are working on the assumption that at some stage there will be a prospectus which therefore has requirements for disclosure. We won't necessarily just be targeting sophisticated investors. We'll be targeting the public. The bank needs to be appropriately positioned for that," he said.

(Reporting by Matt Scuffham, editing by Huw Jones)