Royal Bank of Scotland will sell shares in its insurance division Direct Line Insurance at a lower-than-expected level, the Financial Time said on Thursday.

The newspaper cites people close to the flotation as saying books are expected to open this week with a price range set to have a midpoint of about 2.6 billion pounds ($4.20 billion).

The forced sale of Direct Line could be the biggest listing on the London Stock Exchange for more than a year.

The part-nationalised lender wants to woo prospective investors with a discount to the price tag of between 2.7 billion pounds and 2.9 billion pounds that equity analysts had put on the business, the FT said.

(Reporting by Stephen Mangan. Editing by Andre Grenon)