NatWest to buy wealth manager Evelyn Partners for £2.7bn

NatWest has agreed a £2.7bn deal to buy Evelyn Partners, one of the UK’s biggest wealth managers, in the bank’s largest acquisition since it was bailed out by taxpayers in 2008.The move signals an attempt to bolster the wealth management business for the banking group, which returned to full private ownership last year, and already owns the private bank Coutts.NatWest beat rival bidder Barclays to the takeover, according to Sky News, which first reported the deal, bringing about 2,400 Evelyn Partners employees under its wing.Evelyn Partners, formerly known as Tilney Smith & Williamson, controls about £69bn of client assets and offers financial planning and wealth management across the UK and Ireland.The London-based company had been seeking buyers after its private equity owners, Permira and Warburg Pincus, put it up for sale last summer.The group had already completed the sale of its professional services business to the buyout firm Apax Partners last year.The company traces its roots back to 1836 when Thomas Tilney created his eponymous stock brokerage in the City of London. Tilney was bought by Permira in 2014, before acquiring the 145-year-old Glasgow-based investment company Smith & Williamson in 2019, and rebranding to its current name three years later.Paul Thwaite, the chief executive of NatWest, has led the business since 2024, taking over from Alison Rose after a dispute over Nigel Farage’s Coutts bank account. He has prioritised growth in more lucrative businesses such as wealth management and private banking.Thwaite has previously said the bar for buying other companies is “very high”. However, NatWest has already bought much of Sainsbury’s banking business and a £2.5bn residential mortgage book from Metro Bank since he took charge.He said on Monday that the deal was a “unique opportunity to provide financial planning, savings and investment services to more families and people across the UK”.NatWest returned to full private ownership last May, 17 years after its £45bn taxpayer rescue during the financial crisis, when it was known as Royal Bank of Scotland.The privatisation came at a £10bn loss to taxpayers, as the state recouped only about £35bn of its costs because NatWest’s shares languished below the average 502p level paid in the bailout.The Evelyn Partners chief executive, Paul Geddes, has been at the group since 2023. Before that worked for RBS for 15 years, running its insurance arm, which included the Direct Line and Churchill and Churchill brands.NatWest, which is poised to report its full-year results on Friday, also announced that it would hand £750m to its shareholders via a share buy-back.However, the bank’s stock fell more than 5% in early trading on Monday, putting it among the biggest fallers on the FTSE 100.