Fees paid to privatise NatWest will not be disclosed – Daily Business

An arm’s length body which oversaw the taxpayers’ holdings in the bailed-out banks has declined to reveal how much it paid big City institutions to sell the shares it held in NatWest Group.

UK Government Investments (UKGI) has said that disclosure of the fees paid to Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley, Rothschild and four other investment banks for their roles in privatising NatWest would harm future attempts to agree contracts with financial institutions.

As Royal Bank of Scotland, it was bailed out in 2008 with £45.5 billion of taxpayers’ money after coming close to collapse. In recent months the sale of the stake has accelerated as the bank’s balance sheet was repaired and in May it was returned fully to the private sector.

Bobby Dean, a Liberal Democrat MP on the Treasury committee, told The Times: “After British taxpayers spent billions of pounds bailing out NatWest, the least they deserve is transparency on how much of their own money ended up as fees to big investment banks — the same institutions who were at the heart of the 2008 financial collapse. Ministers must do the right thing and recognise that people have a right to know.”

NatWest also bought back its own shares from the government as part of the process known as accelerated buy back. Seven investment banks were given roles in these share-trading schemes between 2015 and 2025.

Responding to a request from The Times to outline the fees paid to these banks, UKGI said it was obliged to consider the “balance of the public interest between release and non-release of this information”.

While acknowledging a public interest in “the transparency and proper scrutiny” of dealings with third parties, it added: “We consider that the disclosure of the requested information is likely to have a negative impact on the government’s future ability to enter into contractual agreements with financial advisers, particularly when structuring transactions that are market sensitive in nature.

“Disclosure could also undermine the commercial interests of the firms involved by revealing commercially sensitive information about the terms on which these services were provided.

“Given this, we consider that the balance of the public interest test determines that the public interest in withholding this information outweighs the public interest in disclosing it.”