London, March 26, 2026, 18:31 GMT
NatWest Group shares were quoted around 537 pence after the London close on Thursday, below Wednesday’s 543 pence previous close and after touching 532.6 pence in the session, as investors weighed the bank’s sale of its Mentor HR advisory arm against a broader selloff in UK equities. 1
The move matters now because it adds to NatWest’s effort to slim down around core banking and wealth management just as the backdrop for British lenders turns rougher. Markets now price in nearly three Bank of England rate hikes this year, even as economists polled by Reuters mostly expect the central bank to stay on hold, leaving bank investors to balance strategy against a fast-shifting macro picture. 2
NatWest said on Wednesday it would sell Mentor, which provides employment law, HR, health and safety and environmental management advice, to Empowering People Group, backed by Limerston Capital. Financial terms were not disclosed, and the deal is due to close in the third quarter or early fourth quarter of 2026; NatWest said it would continue offering access to Mentor on a referral basis. 2
Robert Begbie, head of NatWest’s commercial and institutional business, called the disposal “an important step” in simplifying the group, and the bank said it expected Mentor to keep working with NatWest customers after completion. 2
The sale lands in the middle of a wider reshaping. NatWest agreed in February to buy Evelyn Partners for 2.7 billion pounds including debt, a move that more than doubles assets under management and administration to 127 billion pounds. Like HSBC and Lloyds, it is pushing harder into fee-based wealth business as lending income cools, and RBC Capital Markets analyst Benjamin Toms called the Evelyn deal “transformational” for NatWest’s affluent offering. 3
A separate filing on Thursday gave the market another stock-specific signal. Capital Group Companies cut its NatWest voting stake to 4.991397% from 5.005597%, slipping just below the 5% UK disclosure threshold after the change took effect on March 24. 4
The bigger drag, though, looked macro. London’s FTSE 100 fell 1.3% on Thursday as Brent crude moved above $105 a barrel, and the OECD cut Britain’s 2026 growth forecast to 0.7% while lifting its inflation forecast to 4.0%, the sharpest downward growth revision among major economies in its interim update. 5
That leaves a clear risk. Gabriella Willis, UK economist at Santander CIB, said “the risk of hikes has increased” if the Middle East conflict drags on, but a Reuters poll still found most economists expect the Bank of England to hold its benchmark rate at 3.75% through year-end. For NatWest and its peers, that is an awkward middle ground: a softer economy, but no clean rates tailwind for the stock. 6
NatWest came into this week with decent momentum on the numbers. In February it reported 2025 pretax profit of 7.7 billion pounds, ahead of the 7.5 billion pound analyst forecast compiled by the bank, and launched a 750 million pound buyback for the first half of 2026 while raising its return on tangible equity target — a common bank profitability measure — to more than 18% by 2028. 7
The next hard checkpoint is close. NatWest’s investor calendar shows first-quarter results on May 1, and that update will likely tell investors more than this week’s headlines about whether the bank’s simplification drive can keep running ahead of a darker UK economic picture.
