NatWest exit ends seventeen year government joint account
The government has completed its NatWest exit after nearly seventeen years, finally closing a joint account opened during the financial crisis and funded by everyone who had hoped to spend their taxes on something less alarming.
Britain injected £45.5 billion into RBS in 2008. Taxpayers became shareholders through the popular investment strategy known as preventing the banking system from falling down the stairs.
The public stake later reached 84.4 per cent. This gave the nation a controlling interest in a bank, but not enough authority to locate a branch pen or make a telephone menu speak to a person.
Receipts retained for emotional reasons
“The parties will remain friends,” said Sir Quentin Break Even, Treasury counsellor for Awkward Exits. “We have cut the commemorative debit card diagonally and hidden the statements in a folder called lessons.”
The government sold shares through buybacks, bookbuilds and a trading plan. These are technical terms for a break up that took years, required several advisers and still made everyone check the maths twice.
Sales, dividends and fees returned around £35 billion. That sits about £10.5 billion below the original support. However, the Treasury argues collapse would have cost much more, proving that the best possible banking rescue comes with a cheaper receipt for catastrophe.
NatWest now returns to private ownership. Ministers can once again describe it as a normal company, while privately checking whether anyone remembers where they put the spare key to the vault.
At last, the Treasury has left the group chat. It has changed its relationship status, deleted nothing and kept every receipt. In Britain, that counts as financial closure.
Read the real story: HM Treasury announcement of the final NatWest share sale
