Crime writer Ian Rankin recalls how guests cheered Fred Goodwin and RBS chiefs as they walked in 'like Reservoir Dogs' at 2007 party celebrating the disastrous takeover of ABN Amro

• Author Ian Rankin told how he partied with disgraced RBS boss Fred Goodwin
• Crime writer was invited to a bash at the bank's headquarters in 2007
• Party was held to celebrate the takeover of ABN Amro before the financial crisis
• Said Goodwin and bank bosses walked in like 'the start of Reservoir Dogs' 

Scottish crime writer Ian Rankin has recalled how he partied with disgraced RBS boss Fred Goodwin a year before the bank was bailed out by the Government. 

Speaking in BBC Scotland documentary The Years That Changed Modern Scotland, Rankin, 60, tells how he was invited to a bash at the RBS headquarters at Gogarburn, in Edinburgh, to celebrate the ABN Amro takeover. 

Though the deal would bring RBS to its knees, at the time it was seen as a triumph for Scotland and a source of national pride, Rankin explains. 

'I was at a party there the night of the ABN Amro takeover that was going to make them one of the biggest banks in the world,' he says.

'It was almost a city in itself, a shiny edifice with its own coffee shops, supermarkets and hairdressers so the staff never needed to leave the premises.

'Sir Fred Goodwin and his senior staff walked into this party. It was almost like the start of Reservoir Dogs. They were almost walking in slow motion with a soundtrack playing, suits and ties, all walking in.

'We all clapped, we all applauded, because we thought it was great for Scotland and great for Edinburgh.'

The one-hour documentary, the latest installment in a four-part series fronted by Kirsty Wark, explores the events of 2008 that saw Scotland go from a leading financial powerhouse and home of the biggest bank in the world, RBS, to an economy in crisis as the global financial crash wreaked havoc.   

In 2007 RBS, led by the then Sir Fred Goodwin, was on its way to becoming the world's biggest bank, with assets of £1.9 trillion.

But following the deal to buy up parts of ABN Amro, in a 73.3 billion euro ($100.5 billion) deal with Fortis and Banco Santander SA, the shaky foundations on which the the RBS financial monster was built started to emerge.

At the time the deal was the biggest banking takeover in history, but it quickly turned into a disaster.

Not only was it concluded at an inflated price after a hostile bidding process, but just as the world economy teetered on the edge of the great recession.

Then Lehman Brothers went out of business. That earthquake triggered a financial tsunami which went on to flatten RBS, which had to be rescued by taxpayers 12 months later at the cost of £45.2 billion.

Rankin adds: 'We were a world financial powerhouse and suddenly that all appeared to be built on sand.'

Five years on a Treasury Committee report - titled 'The FSA'’s report into the failure of RBS' - concluded that the Financial Services Authority should and could have intervened in the doomed takeover.

Goodwin, the bank’s former chief executive, was stripped of his knighthood in 2012,.

Much of ABN Amro's operations had to be split out to reform it following the collapse and in 2012 RBS 'sold' back to the Dutch lender parts of its businesses originally acquired in 2007.

Selling the Dutch business continued RBS's rapid downsizing of its global banking and markets arm to restructure the bank and focus it more on UK retail and commercial banking. 

The Years That Changed Modern Scotland airs on BBC Scotland and iPlayer tomorrow at 10pm