NatWest to purchase wealth supervisor Evelyn Companions for £2.7bn | NatWest Group

NatWest has agreed a £2.7bn deal to purchase Evelyn Companions, one of many UK’s largest wealth managers, within the financial institution’s largest acquisition because it was bailed out by taxpayers in 2008.

The transfer alerts an try and bolster the wealth administration enterprise for the banking group, which returned to full non-public possession final yr, and already owns the non-public financial institution Coutts.

NatWest beat rival bidder Barclays to the takeover, in line with Sky Information, which first reported the deal, bringing about 2,400 Evelyn Companions workers beneath its wing.

Evelyn Companions, previously generally known as Tilney Smith & Williamson, controls about £69bn of consumer property and gives monetary planning and wealth administration throughout the UK and Eire.

The London-based firm had been in search of consumers after its non-public fairness homeowners, Permira and Warburg Pincus, put it up on the market final summer season.

The group had already accomplished the sale of its skilled providers enterprise to the buyout agency Apax Companions final yr.

The corporate traces its roots again to 1836 when Thomas Tilney created his eponymous inventory brokerage within the Metropolis of London. Tilney was purchased by Permira in 2014, earlier than buying the 145-year-old Glasgow-based funding firm Smith & Williamson in 2019, and rebranding to its present title three years later.

Paul Thwaite, the chief govt of NatWest, has led the enterprise since 2024, taking up from Alison Rose after a dispute over Nigel Farage’s Coutts checking account. He has prioritised progress in additional profitable companies resembling wealth administration and personal banking.

Thwaite has beforehand stated the bar for getting different corporations is “very excessive”. Nevertheless, NatWest has already purchased a lot of Sainsbury’s banking enterprise and a £2.5bn residential mortgage guide from Metro Financial institution since he took cost.

He stated on Monday that the deal was a “distinctive alternative to offer monetary planning, financial savings and funding providers to extra households and other people throughout the UK”.

NatWest returned to full non-public possession final Might, 17 years after its £45bn taxpayer rescue through the monetary disaster, when it was generally known as Royal Financial institution of Scotland.

The privatisation got here at a £10bn loss to taxpayers, because the state recouped solely about £35bn of its prices as a result of NatWest’s shares languished beneath the typical 502p stage paid within the bailout.

The Evelyn Companions chief govt, Paul Geddes, has been on the group since 2023. Earlier than that labored for RBS for 15 years, operating its insurance coverage arm, which included the Direct Line and Churchill and Churchill manufacturers.

NatWest, which is poised to report its full-year outcomes on Friday, additionally introduced that it might hand £750m to its shareholders through a share buy-back.

Nevertheless, the financial institution’s inventory fell greater than 5% in early buying and selling on Monday, placing it among the many largest fallers on the FTSE 100.