By Elena Vardon


The U.K. government has reduced its stakeholding in NatWest to below 30%, meaning it isn't the controlling shareholder of the British lender anymore.

The Treasury trimmed its shareholding in the bank to 29.82% from 30.98% through a share sale on March 22, regulatory filings showed on Monday. It still holds 10.44 billion shares and remains the lender's largest single shareholder.

The retained stake is worth around 27.25 billion pounds ($34.34 billion) based on Friday's closing price of 261.10 pence.

The government is no longer subject to the extra regulatory and legal requirements that came along with being a controlling shareholder--which the Financial Conduct Authority defines as having at least 30% of the company's votes.

The U.K.'s stake in the bank resulted from the government's 2008 bailout of Royal Bank of Scotland, which bought NatWest in 2000 and rebranded the enlarged company as NatWest Group in 2020. The government spent GBP45.5 billion pounds of taxpayer money on the bailout and at one point owned 84% of the bank.

"This milestone represents clear progress on the government's commitment to return NatWest to full private ownership, an objective that it intends to achieve by 2025-26, subject to supportive market conditions and achieving value for money," the U.K.'s Treasury said in a statement.

It has raised around GBP5.8 million in proceeds from the trading plan since its start in August 2021, it added.

Treasury chief Jeremy Hunt plans to start a retail sale to sell down part of its stake this summer at the earliest, he said in his Spring Budget.

NatWest shares--which are up 18% since the start of the year--trade 1.1% lower at 258.2 pence at 1338 GMT, while the FTSE 100 slips 0.24%.


Write to Elena Vardon at elena.vardon@wsj.com


(END) Dow Jones Newswires

03-25-24 0958ET