Dispatches

Sir Fred Goodwin worked as Group Chief Executive of RBS from March 2000 to November 2008. His lavish lifestyle and infamous pension have come to symbolise the excesses of the banking world.

In February 2009 Goodwin was heavily criticised when - just weeks after RBS revealed the scale of its losses - details of the size of his pension emerged. Though treasury minister Lord Myners said there should be 'no reward for failure', Goodwin's pension fund was doubled to over £16 million due to the terms of his contract with RBS.

Download Goodwin's RBS contract (2004)

According to employment lawyer Claire Dawson: 'Sir Fred's contract is tightly drafted in his favour. He's negotiated certain obligations on the part of RBS to pay him out on termination of his employment and if I were acting for him I'd be looking for those to be enforced in full.'

More on Sir Fred Goodwin

Prior to his fall from grace, Goodwin was lauded by shareholders, the City and of course Westminster and Downing Street. A Chartered Accountant by training, he'd already clocked up banking experience before he joined RBS in 2000, serving as chief executive of Clydesdale Bank and Yorkshire Bank. But it was at RBS that he earned a reputation as a pugnacious and ambitious dealmaker, turning Royal Bank of Scotland from an essentially domestic outfit into the fifth largest bank in the world. He steered the company through deal after deal, audaciously buying up 26 rivals not least NatWest, Citizens Bank in the US and the Queen's bank Coutts.

Once famously dubbed a megalomaniac by one city analyst, he won his nickname ('Fred the Shred') for ruthlessly restructuring the companies and slashing staff to boost profits. But it was his aggressive takeover of Dutch bank ABN Amro at the height of the boom in 2007 that proved to be a deal too far - Fred accidentally shredded himself.

On a personal level, his 8 years at the helm of RBS saw him pocket more than £23 million in remuneration on top of his vast £16 million pension pot. Along the way he enjoyed an A-list style lifestyle and a raft of perks, from the bank's corporate jet, fruit reportedly flown daily from Paris to RBS's sponsorship of Formula 1. He hobnobbed with politicians, royalty and celebrities, and secured himself a plum role as chairman of the Prince's Trust and a knighthood for services to banking to boot. Not bad for a grammar school boy from Paisley.