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The UK government has cut its stake in NatWest to less than 23 per cent as it speeds up its exit from the high-street bank, after the upcoming general election forced it to freeze plans for a share sale to the public.
The government on Friday said it had sold £1.24bn of shares to the bank via a buyback. The sale reduces its stake to 22.5 per cent, down from 38 per cent at the end of last year.
The latest disposal came after the Treasury suspended plans to sell shares to the public because of the election, which has been scheduled for July 4.
The retail share sale was part of a drive by the government to boost the UK stock market but it was put on hold last week after the election was announced, with the Treasury confirming it would not take place before then.
NatWest chief executive Paul Thwaite said the latest buyback was an “important milestone” for the bank and represented “further progress against the ambition to return NatWest Group to full private ownership”.
The government, which has been a shareholder in the bank since its £46bn bailout at the height of the financial crisis, is hoping to fully re-privatise it by 2026.
The state ceased to be its controlling shareholder earlier this year when it cut its stake below 30 per cent, freeing the bank from certain requirements such as holding two votes on appointing directors.
NatWest shareholders last month approved a proposal to increase the amount of shares it could buy back from the government in a year from just under 5 per cent to 15 per cent.
Shares in NatWest have risen more than 40 per cent since the start of the year. A row with politician Nigel Farage over the closure of his bank account at Coutts, the wealth manager owned by NatWest, last year toppled former chief executive Dame Alison Rose.
The bank made interim chief executive Thwaite permanent in February after a six-week selection process led by new chair Rick Haythornthwaite.
