LONDON, April 30, 2026, 16:02 BST
NatWest Group Plc faces its first-quarter numbers on Friday, but Chairman Rick Haythornthwaite is already feeling the heat from investors after a climate row erupted at the annual meeting. Just 92.09% of shareholders backed Haythornthwaite’s re-election—still a majority, but the lowest support among all 25 resolutions at the AGM. Dissent ran at 7.91%, according to a regulatory filing.
This lands at a tough moment for Britain’s high street bank. NatWest will post its first-quarter numbers at 7 a.m. BST on May 1, with executives set to present at 9 a.m.—so governance concerns are now sharing the stage with the earnings release.
NatWest’s first-quarter total income looks set to hit roughly 4.31 billion pounds, according to a company-published analyst consensus drawn from 14 models as of April 20. Operating profit before tax? Analysts peg it at 1.94 billion pounds. That same group expects a net interest margin of 2.47%—the spread between lending income and deposit costs.
Protesters disrupted the Edinburgh AGM for about 30 minutes, The Guardian reported, before the meeting resumed with shareholders zeroing in on climate policy and executive pay. Mara Lilley from the Church of England pension board said their vote against Haythornthwaite was due to “concerns about NatWest backtracking on its climate commitments.” ShareAction’s Jeanne Martin described the vote as a “significant level of dissent.” The Guardian
The dispute started in February, after Reuters revealed NatWest had relaxed its fossil-fuel lending policies. The bank scrapped bans related to reserve-based lending for oil and gas projects and also eased requirements for oil majors without climate-aligned transition plans. At the time, Kelly Shields from ShareAction called the move to loosen financing restrictions for big fossil-fuel companies a “serious concern.” Reuters
NatWest insists its overall climate strategy remains intact. The bank maintains its target to hit net zero for financed emissions, assets under management, and its own operations by 2050, sticking as well to a goal of cutting the climate impact of its financing by at least half by 2030 compared to 2019.
Management wants investors to pay attention to the bank’s growth prospects now that state ownership is behind it. During the AGM, executives pointed to 2025 targets: income of 16.4 billion pounds, operating profit reaching 7.7 billion pounds, and a 7 billion pound increase in mortgage balances. They also said the Evelyn Partners deal should close in the coming months.
Barclays set a high bar with first-quarter profit before tax coming in at 2.8 billion pounds, plus it announced a new 500 million pound buyback. Over at Lloyds Banking Group, quarterly earnings jumped 33%, and net interest income reached 3.57 billion pounds. NatWest now faces scrutiny as investors stack up its performance on margin, credit quality, and capital returns next to those two domestic competitors.
The risks stand out. On Thursday, Reuters said the Bank of England kept rates steady but mapped out possible Iran war scenarios that might call for a “forceful” rate hike; higher rates can initially boost bank margins, but they also put pressure on borrowers and can push up loan-loss charges if the economy falters. Reuters
Haythornthwaite holds the mandate, at least for now. As for Friday’s results, they might shift attention to NatWest’s earnings, but the ongoing climate debate could still trail the bank into its next round of investor meetings; BusinessGreen noted the re-elected chair has agreed to sit down with investors worried about NatWest’s climate stance after that AGM disruption.
