London, March 25, 2026, 14:39 GMT
NatWest shares rose on Wednesday after the bank said it would sell Mentor, its HR advisory arm, in another step away from side businesses. The stock was up 1.65% at 542.7 pence in delayed London trade. Reuters
The timing matters. NatWest has been reshaping itself around core UK banking and wealth management since February, when it announced a 750 million pound share buyback — where a company repurchases its own stock — even as war-driven inflation fears knocked bank shares last week and led traders to price in two or three Bank of England rate hikes this year. Reuters
NatWest said the Mentor sale to Empowering People Group should close in the third quarter or early fourth quarter of 2026. The bank will keep offering customers access to the service on a referral basis. Robert Begbie, chief executive of commercial and institutional, called the disposal an “important step” to “simplify and focus on what matters most”. NatWest Group
The market backdrop helped. London’s FTSE 100 rose 1.1% in morning trade, with banks up 2.1%, while Barclays added 3.16%, Lloyds gained 0.56% and HSBC slipped 0.14% in delayed trading. Reuters
NatWest’s bounce still only claws back part of this month’s drop. The shares opened at 539.0 pence and traded as high as 544.8 pence on Wednesday, but remained well below the 705.4 pence year high. Hargreaves Lansdown
The broader bet is wealth. Reuters reported in February that NatWest agreed to buy Evelyn Partners for 2.7 billion pounds including debt, more than doubling the client money it manages or administers and pushing it deeper into a business where HSBC and Lloyds have also been expanding and Barclays had looked at Evelyn. RBC Capital Markets analyst Benjamin Toms called that deal “transformational”. St James’s Place, a listed wealth specialist, was up 2.3% on Wednesday. Reuters
But the recovery could fade quickly. Reuters reported on Wednesday that hopes of a Middle East ceasefire were lifting European stocks, yet Swissquote senior analyst Ipek Ozkardeskaya warned that if Iran does not cooperate, “we still could see oil prices spike back up and above the $100 per barrel level.” A fresh oil shock would revive inflation fears and could hit bank stocks again. Reuters
For now, NatWest was running ahead of the broader FTSE 350, which was up 0.59% in delayed trade. That points to investors reading the Mentor disposal as a useful sign of discipline and direction, not a deal that changes earnings on its own. Hargreaves Lansdown
