By Carla Mozee, MarketWatch

LONDON (MarketWatch) -- U.K. stocks huddled around the flatline Thursday, with shares of Standard Chartered PLC gaining as the bank said it has named a new chief executive, while stock in Royal Bank of Scotland PLC was dragged lower following financial results.

The FTSE 100 picked up 2 points at 6,937.38.

Near the top of the blue-chip benchmark was Standard Chartered PLC , whose shares climbed 2% after the Asia-focused lender said CEO Peter Sands will step down (http://www.marketwatch.com/story/standard-chartered-names-bill-winters-next-ceo-as-it-shakes-up-top-brass-2015-02-26) in June, after eight years in the role. He will be succeeded by Bill Winters, who once served as the co-CEO of J.P. Morgan Investment Bank. Other leadership changes are also planned.

It is now "the right moment to hand over to new leadership," said Sands in a statement. "It has been my privilege to lead the people of Standard Chartered through a period of extraordinary turbulence and growth." Sands had been under pressure to step down as profit has fallen and shares have struggled.

On the losing end of the FTSE 100, RBS (RBS) dropped 3.2% after the company logged a 2014 net loss of 3.47 billion pounds (http://www.marketwatch.com/story/rbs-posts-seventh-loss-in-a-row-after-write-down-2015-02-26) ($5.39 billion) after writing down the value of part-owned U.S. unit Citizens Financial Group. The bank's seventh straight loss, which was narrower than last year's loss of GBP9 billion, was the result of several one-off charges.

Reed Elsevier PLC shares were also down, losing 4.6% as the publishing and exhibitions company posted a fall in full-year net profit and revenue (http://www.marketwatch.com/story/reed-elsevier-full-year-profit-falls-2015-02-26-2485424).

EasyJet PLC was down 2.4% as the budget airline's shares traded without dividend rights.

Meanwhile, the pound (GBPUSD) edged higher to $1.5536 after gross domestic product was confirmed to have grown 0.5% in the fourth quarter. The first GDP reading from the the Office for National Statistics was released in January. The pound traded at $1.5523 ahead of Thursday's report, compared with $1.5530 late Thursday in New York.

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