NatWest Group is finalising plans to pay out close to £450m in bonuses for last year as it prepares for a return to full private ownership nearly 17 years after its bailout.
Sky News has learnt that the bank’s remuneration committee is close to signing off the bonus pool ahead of its annual results announcement later this month.
The figure of roughly £450m will be about 25% higher than last year’s bonus pot of £356m, reflecting NatWest’s sharply improved performance in 2024, according to City sources.
Shares in the bank, which at one point was more than 80%-owned by British taxpayers, have nearly doubled over the last 12 months.
The Treasury has been rapidly reducing its stake in NatWest, with it now standing at just under 8%.
This weekend, Sky News can also reveal that the state will cease to become the company’s single-biggest shareholder within a matter of weeks, based on the current pace of the government’s trading plan, which drip-feeds stock into the market.
BlackRock, the world’s largest asset manager, holds a stake in NatWest of roughly 6%, meaning it could replace the Treasury as NatWest’s biggest investor as early as this month.
That would represent another significant milestone for NatWest’s board, chaired by Rick Haythornthwaite.
In October, the bank raised its profit outlook after posting a 26% rise in third-quarter income.
After its shares closed at 433.1p on Friday afternoon, it now has a market capitalisation of close to £35bn.
Last year, Sky News revealed that NatWest was planning to hand its chief executive a potential multimillion pound pay boost as it returns to full private ownership.
Lena Wilson, the chair of the bank’s remuneration committee has been consulting leading institutional shareholders about an overhaul of its boardroom pay policy, with the proposals to be put to a vote at its spring AGM.
Under the plans, Paul Thwaite, who took over as the bank’s interim chief executive in July 2023 before being handed the…
