NatWest: Key dates in the bank’s history from rescue to privatisation

NatWest has returned to private ownership after the Government sold its remaining shares in the bank.

The banking group – which was previously called RBS – was rescued during the 2008 financial crisis with payments worth £45.5 billion, which led to it become part-owned by taxpayers.

The Treasury has been rapidly selling down its shareholding over the past 18 months, whittling it down to zero and meaning the bank is once again in private hands.

Here’s a timeline with key dates from the bailout of NatWest through to its return to privatisation on Friday.

RBS Group bought NatWest for £21 billion which, at the time, was the largest in British banking history.

The combined group operated a number of separate banking brands, including the Royal Bank of Scotland, NatWest and Ulster Bank.

RBS was part of a consortium that acquired the Dutch bank ABN AMRO. This decision, which propelled the group into investment banking and sapped its capital levels, proved to be destructive for RBS.

The takeover was ultimately found to have taken place with “inadequate due diligence” and was one of the key reasons why it was on the brink of collapse the following year.

The Government makes a capital payment worth £20 billion to RBS.

Then-prime minister Gordon Brown and chancellor Alistair Darling engineered the rescue after being warned the bank was facing imminent collapse and could run out of cash in a matter of hours.

It was the fallout of the financial crash, combined with its structural weaknesses, which triggered a major bank run and pushed it to the brink of failure.

Chief executive Fred Goodwin, who was in charge of the bank for nine years, stepped down the same month and was replaced by Stephen Hester.

He had been nicknamed “Fred the Shred” for his aggressive management style that oversaw thousands of job cuts at NatWest after it was taken over by the RBS at the turn of the century. He was later stripped of his knighthood.

February: RBS unveiled its largest annual loss in the bank’s history – an operating pre-tax loss of £40.7 billion.

April: The Government’s stake in NatWest increased to 70.3%.

December: The Government injected another £25.5 billion into RBS, taking its shareholding to 84.4%, where it peaked.

Ross McEwan stepped in as chief executive after a five-year tenure for Mr Hester.

The first sale of Government-owned shares took place.

RBS announced its first bottom-line profit in a decade, of £752 million. A second sale of shares of £2.5 billion took place.

Dame Alison Rose took over as chief executive of the group – the first woman to lead a major UK high street bank.

Under Dame Alison’s leadership, RBS changed its name to NatWest Group, saying it was the right time to align the group name with the brand under which it does the majority of its business. NatWest represented about 80% of its customer base at the time.

Dame Alison was forced to step down as the NatWest’s chief executive in the wake of the debanking scandal, when she admitted being the source of an inaccurate story about politician Nigel Farage’s finances in relation to his account with the group’s subsidiary Coutts.

She was replaced by Paul Thwaite, the bank’s former chief executive of commercial and institutional business.

March: The Government’s stake in NatWest dropped below 30%, meaning it was no longer classed as being a controlling shareholder.

July: The Treasury began accelerating the sale process and its shareholding dropped below 20%.

December: The Treasury’s shareholding fell below 10%.

May: The Government sells its remaining shares in NatWest, returning it to private ownership for the first time since 2008.

The Treasury confirmed that the sale came at a £10.5 billion loss to the UK taxpayer. But Chancellor Rachel Reeves said the bailout was “the right decision then to secure the economy”.