The process will have taken 17 years. If that feels like an age, it is a shorter timespan than seemed likely only 12 months ago.
At the end of last year, the government's stake—84.9% after the two-stage nationalisation by the last Labour administration in 2008-09—was still 38%. Now it is down to 11.4% after the latest "directed buyback", in which the bank bought shares from the Treasury for cancellation—in this case £1bn-worth.
NatWest probably has scope to fund another £1bn in the same way before spring, but the bulk of the shares will be shifted by straightforward sales in the stock market. It is this steady drip-feed of shares via a trading plan that has quietly made the difference in the past 12 months.
Bu hikaye The Guardian dergisinin November 12, 2024 sayısından alınmıştır.
Start your 7-day Magzter GOLD free trial to access thousands of curated premium stories, and 9,000+ magazines and newspapers.
Already a subscriber ? Giriş Yap
Bu hikaye The Guardian dergisinin November 12, 2024 sayısından alınmıştır.
Start your 7-day Magzter GOLD free trial to access thousands of curated premium stories, and 9,000+ magazines and newspapers.
Already a subscriber? Giriş Yap
Time for a new election?
It's been four whole months and Starmer still hasn't fixed things
Don't 'whack' business again after treating it as budget cash cow - CBI
The chair of the Confederation of British Industry, Rupert Soames, accused the government of treating employers as a \"cash cow\" yesterday as he urged ministers to water down plans for workers' rights.
The 'grande dame of blockbusters', Barbara Taylor Bradford, dies at 91
Barbara Taylor Bradford, the best-selling author of novels including A Woman of Substance, has died aged 91, her publisher has confirmed.
Farms IFS urges ministers to delay inheritance tax change
Ministers should give farmers an inheritance tax holiday for the next few years, the Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS) has said as it warned that government changes to agricultural taxes risked treating some landowners unfairly.
New Royal Opera director to fuse music and technology
Netia Jones, who won acclaim for directing the Royal Opera's first virtual reality production, Current, Rising, is to become the company's associate director.
Government pledge to aid former soldier captured in Russia
The British government has promised to do all it can to assist a British former soldier fighting for Ukraine who has been taken prisoner by the Russian army.
Bah, humbug: Vandal smashes gravestone of Ebenezer Scrooge
\"Marley was dead: to begin with,\" reads the start of Charles Dickens's A Christmas Carol, the ghostly morality tale of miserly Ebenezer Scrooge who, through a series of encounters with spirits in the early hours of Christmas morning, realises he needs to change his ways.
Weight-loss drugs found to cut risk of kidney malfunction
Weight-loss drugs can reduce the risk of worsening kidney function, kidney failure and dying from kidney disease by a fifth, according to a study.
'Devastating' Investigation after tractor smashes doors and windows
Police are investigating after a tractor drove through a flooded high street in Tenbury Wells, Worcestershire, creating a wave of water that hit local businesses, smashing windows and knocking doors open.
Criticism of Met Office and flood defences amid storm wreckage
Forecasters, environment officials and politicians have been strongly criticised over the warnings issued before Storm Bert and the fitness of flood defences to cope with increasingly common extreme weather.