REG - NatWest Group plc - Virtual Shareholder Event Statements

NatwestAnnouncement

18/04/2023 18:00

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RNS Number : 6518W  NatWest Group plc  18 April 2023

NatWest Group plc

Virtual Shareholder Event Statements

18 April 2023

NatWest Group plc will hold its Virtual Shareholder Event ("Virtual Event") at
6.00 p.m. today. The Virtual Event is being held ahead of the Annual General
Meeting ("AGM") which will be held at Gogarburn, Edinburgh EH12 1HQ at 11.00
a.m. on 25 April 2023.  By holding the Virtual Event as well as the physical
AGM, we are providing shareholders with the opportunity to engage with our
Chairman, Howard Davis and our CEO, Alison Rose, DBE and ask questions prior
to voting on the business of the AGM.

The following is an extract of the remarks to be made by Howard Davies and
Alison Rose at the Virtual Event.

Howard Davies

Good evening and welcome to our latest virtual shareholder event, which
provides an opportunity to answer questions from those who are unable to
attend next week's AGM.

As countries finally opened up for business after two years of pandemic
lockdowns, the global economy faced further pressures resulting from the
Russian invasion of Ukraine, which continues to have a devasting impact on
those who live there, as well as adding to the rising cost of living and the
cost of doing business all over the world.

These factors, along with a rapidly changing political landscape, drove
inflation in the UK to a 40-year high, with consumers and businesses facing
heightened costs and considerable uncertainty.

Within the first few months of this year, we have already seen the impact that
uncertainty and rising interest rates can have on the banking sector, with the
collapse of Silicon Valley Bank and other lenders in the US. We also saw the
acquisition of Credit Suisse by UBS, facilitated by the Swiss authorities.

Ultimately, poor risk management and long-standing, idiosyncratic challenges
were largely to blame for these failures.

NatWest Group has built a robust and resilient balance sheet with strong
capital and liquidity positions, a largely secured retail book and a
well-diversified Commercial loan book.

Tight risk management underpins our strategy and means we are well positioned
for future challenges and opportunities.

We nonetheless continue to monitor customer activity and behaviours closely
for signs of stress, taking action where appropriate.

Against this difficult and uncertain economic backdrop, NatWest Group
demonstrated a strong financial performance in 2022, with continued
responsible growth in our lending and progress against our strategy.

We also continued to deliver sustainable returns to shareholders, announcing
£5.1 billion of dividends and buybacks for 2022.

As well as the £1 billion final dividend that we have asked you to vote on,
we paid an interim dividend of £364 million and a special dividend of £1.75
billion, alongside a share consolidation.

We also completed a £750 million on-market buyback and announced a further
£800 million at Full Year Results.

And we were pleased to have the opportunity to buy back £1.2bn of shares
directly from the government.

The government also continued to sell shares throughout the year through its
trading plan, which the Treasury recently announced it will maintain until
August 2025.

As a result of these disposals, the government's shareholding is now below 42
per cent, down from 52 per cent at the start of last year.

This is positive progress on the path to full privatisation.

As they did during the COVID-19 pandemic, Alison and her leadership team have
continued to use the bank's Purpose to guide decision making in a difficult
operating environment; supporting our customers and continuing to lend
responsibly while growing the business.

Alison Rose

2022 presented another year of acute macroeconomic challenges, and during this
heightened uncertainty, it was as important as ever to be guided by our
Purpose.

We delivered a strong financial performance as a Group - we reported a pre-tax
operating profit of £5.1 billion and a return on tangible equity of 12.3%.

Income was up around 30% and costs were down nearly 3%.

Lending across our three franchises grew by 6.7% year on year, including £45
billion of new gross mortgage lending and £25.4 billion of new climate and
sustainable funding and financing.

Crucially, our all-weather balance sheet, with high levels of capital and
liquidity, and a diversified loan book means that we are well positioned to
navigate economic uncertainty, particularly in light of recent market
volatility.

 

I, and my Executive team, continue to monitor the market movements closely to
ensure that we are well placed to continue supporting our customers.

Despite not seeing significant signs of financial distress or changes in
behaviour amongst our customers, we recognise that people are struggling.

Last year, we responded quickly and meaningfully to support our customers and
colleagues to navigate cost of living challenges. We completed thousands of
financial health checks, froze certain tariffs to help SMEs, allocated £10
million of hardship funding through our charity partners and provided around
60,000 colleagues with a £1,000 support payment.

Our customers are at the heart of everything we do - and we will continue
ensuring our services meet their needs. 90% of our retail banking customer
needs are now met digitally and we have invested £122 million into our mobile
and digital services.

But we recognise our responsibility to provide services that work for all our
customers - including those who have challenges moving online. There are more
ways to bank than ever before with 16,000 points of presence for our
customers. Bank branches are, and will continue to be, an important part of
our services. We are investing £20 million in our existing branches while
providing continuous alternative services, such as our ongoing collaboration
with the Post Office, a dedicated support line for over 60s and support from
customer care experts such as our Community Bankers for our vulnerable
customers.

Our Purpose-led strategy is working and we are continuing to make strong
progress across our core priorities of climate, learning and enterprise.

Addressing climate change is one of the biggest issues of our generation and
through funding, refinancing, and providing practical tools to help people,
families, and businesses to transition to net zero, we are playing our part to
support our customers, communities, shareholders and the planet.

In 2022, we became the first UK bank, and one of the largest banks globally,
to have science-based targets validated by the Science Based Targets
initiative. These underpin the initial iteration of our Climate Transition
Plan, which outlines the steps we aim to take to at least halve the climate
impact of our financing activity by 2030 and achieve our net zero climate
ambition by 2050.

And we are determined to ensure our capital is being used to support the
transition to net zero while reducing the financing of harmful emissions. We
are also offering green financing options and practical tools for our
customers to support a sustainable transition to a low carbon economy.

Entrepreneurs are the lifeblood of the UK economy, and we continue to build on
our position as the leading high street bank for business. Through initiatives
like our 13 free accelerator hubs across the country, we now have the highest
market share among businesses younger than two years old, and continue to
provide expert support for high growth companies as well as those wishing
scale up support.

In March, we were the first European financial institution to issue a social
bond specifically designed to lend to women-led businesses - a further
demonstration of our unwavering commitment to increasing the number of
female-led business in the country.

We are a learning organisation, and are committed to breaking down the
barriers for people to succeed. Through our MoneySense and CareerSense
schemes, we continue to champion learning and ensure young people develop the
financial literacy and employability skills needed to meet their potential.

We have also been delighted to collaborate with footballer and campaigner
Marcus Rashford MBE and the National Youth Agency to provide NatWest Thrive, a
unique and innovative programme for young people to develop their self-belief
as well as their money confidence.

The growth of the economy is inseparable from the growth of our nation's
children, and so I am immensely proud of our new market-leading partner leave
policy which supports all eligible colleagues with significantly more time
away from work to help their partner look after their new child, whether the
child has arrived through birth, adoption, or surrogacy.

And just last month, we had the pleasure of hosting the first meeting of the
Princess of Wales's Business Taskforce for Early Childhood at our London
Office.

These actions , driven by our purpose, are not just the right thing to do but
are also key to building a profitable organisation. We are creating ever
closer and deeper relationships with our customers at every stage of their
lives.

Our all-weather balance sheet, and financial strength means that we are well
positioned to respond to new and emerging trends that are shaping the future
of our customers' financial lives. And we will continue to seek opportunities
to drive future growth through three targeted areas:

Firstly, we will increase our personalised engagement with customers as their
lives and finances become increasingly complex.

Secondly, our customers are spending more time on digital platforms, and so we
will embed our services into our customers' daily lives.

And thirdly, we have a huge role to play to support our customers to tackle
the climate challenge head-on and transition to a more sustainable low carbon
economy.

2022 has once again shown the importance of being a purpose-led bank. But it
has also shown us what it takes to be purpose-led.

As we look to the future, we do so with confidence. Against a volatile
economic backdrop, we continue to demonstrate the strength and resilience of
our business, delivering a strong financial performance whilst proactively
supporting our customers and communities, and laying the foundations to grow.

 

 

Forward-looking statements

This document may include forward-looking statements within the meaning of the
United States Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995, such as
statements that include, without limitation, the words 'expect', 'estimate',
'project', 'anticipate', 'commit', 'believe', 'should', 'intend', 'will',
'plan', 'could', 'probability', 'risk', 'Value-at-Risk (VaR)', 'target',
'goal', 'objective', 'may', 'endeavour', 'outlook', 'optimistic', 'prospects'
and similar expressions or variations on these expressions. These statements
concern or may affect future matters, such as NatWest Group's future economic
results, business plans and strategies.  In particular, this document may
include forward-looking statements relating to NatWest Group plc in respect
of, but not limited to: its economic and political risks, its regulatory
capital position and related requirements, its financial position,
profitability and financial performance (including financial, capital, cost
savings and operational targets), the implementation of its purpose-led
strategy, its environmental, social and governance and climate related
targets, its access to adequate sources of liquidity and funding, increasing
competition from new incumbents and disruptive technologies, its exposure to
third party risks, its ongoing compliance with the UK ring-fencing regime and
ensuring operational continuity in resolution, its impairment losses and
credit exposures under certain specified scenarios, substantial regulation and
oversight, ongoing legal, regulatory and governmental actions and
investigations, the transition of LIBOR and IBOR rates to replacement risk
free rates and NatWest Group's exposure to operational risk, conduct risk,
cyber, data and IT risk, financial crime risk, key person risk and credit
rating risk. Forward-looking statements are subject to a number of risks and
uncertainties that might cause actual results and performance to differ
materially from any expected future results or performance expressed or
implied by the forward-looking statements. Factors that could cause or
contribute to differences in current expectations include, but are not limited
to, future growth initiatives (including acquisitions, joint ventures and
strategic partnerships), the outcome of legal, regulatory and governmental
actions and investigations, the level and extent of future impairments and
write-downs, legislative, political, fiscal and regulatory developments,
accounting standards, competitive conditions, technological developments,
interest and exchange rate fluctuations, general economic and political
conditions and the impact of climate-related risks and the transitioning to a
net zero economy. These and other factors, risks and uncertainties that may
impact any forward-looking statement or NatWest Group plc's actual results are
discussed in NatWest Group plc's UK 2022 Annual Report and Accounts (ARA) and
its other public filings. The forward-looking statements contained in this
document speak only as of the date of this document and NatWest Group plc does
not assume or undertake any obligation or responsibility to update any of the
forward-looking statements contained in this document, whether as a result of
new information, future events or otherwise, except to the extent legally
required.

 

 

 

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