{"id":420277,"date":"2026-02-11T17:34:33","date_gmt":"2026-02-11T17:34:33","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/420277\/"},"modified":"2026-02-11T17:34:33","modified_gmt":"2026-02-11T17:34:33","slug":"has-natwest-overpaid-for-evelyn-or-should-have-chosen-rathbones","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/420277\/","title":{"rendered":"Has NatWest overpaid for Evelyn or should have chosen Rathbones?"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Has Has NatWest overpaid for Evelyn or should have chosen Rathbones? Proactive uses images sourced from Shutterstock <\/p>\n

NatWest Group PLC<\/a>\u00a0shares fell 4% to\u00a0632.8p, having recently hit a post-2008 high, after the bank revealed it had struck a \u00a32.7 billion deal to buy Evelyn Partners<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Ahead of NatWest\u2019s financial results on Friday, the purchase of the wealth management firm drew a mixed response from City analysts, with attention focused on price, cost savings and what it means for the wider wealth sector.<\/p>\n

UBS noted the lender is paying about 15 times historic EBITDA, based on Evelyn\u2019s \u00a3179 million profit, before synergies.<\/p>\n

NatWest is targeting \u00a3100 million of annual cost savings, which would bring the effective multiple down to just under 10 times.<\/p>\n

UBS noted the deal uses about 130 basis points of capital and that the bank expects the return on the acquisition to beat what it would earn from a share buyback, with\u00a0an expected internal rate of return on the acquisition above the 11% implied cost of equity of a share buyback<\/p>\n

Jefferies said the deal was a blow for those hoping Evelyn might list independently.<\/p>\n

Also, analyst\u00a0Julian Roberts said if NatWest wanted to buy a business with \u00a350 billion-plus assets under management business in the UK discretionary wealth management space, “why not buy the something else?”<\/p>\n

He suggested Rathbones Group PLC<\/a>, which has over \u00a3100 billion of AUM and a lower enterprise value of around \u00a32 billion.<\/p>\n

It also raised questions for listed wealth managers, arguing that the price paid could give “a bump from the comparison, or the market decides that demand for these assets has just diminished”.<\/p>\n

Based on Evelyn’s \u00a32.7 billion enterprise value, Rathbones would be worth circa\u00a0\u00a34.2 billion on the same multiple of AUM, which is a 70% premium to the current market cap, and even more versus EV.<\/p>\n

Analyst Rae Maile at Panmure Liberum said the sale ends long-running speculation around Evelyn\u2019s future, seeing off rivals suitors including Barclays and ending some hopes for a possible IPO.<\/p>\n

Much of the \u00a3100 million in hoped-for cost savings is likely to come from NatWest\u2019s existing operations as the business is folded into Coutts and other units, with\u00a0NatWest’s intention to also generate “revenue synergies”.<\/p>\n

“The track record of banks achieving these anywhere, let alone in wealth management (anyone else remember Lloyds Abbey Life?) is limited if we are generous.”<\/p>\n

More broadly, he said the deal underlined continuing consolidation in a sector seen as structurally attractive over the long term.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Has NatWest overpaid for Evelyn or should have chosen Rathbones? Proactive uses images sourced from Shutterstock NatWest Group…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":420278,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[84,74117,154972,42019,4176,16819,154971,4174,4175,72230,28712,56,54,55,154973],"class_list":{"0":"post-420277","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-personal-finance","8":"tag-business","9":"tag-cost-savings","10":"tag-evelyn","11":"tag-evelyn-partners","12":"tag-finance","13":"tag-natwest","14":"tag-natwest-group","15":"tag-personal-finance","16":"tag-personalfinance","17":"tag-rathbones","18":"tag-share-buyback","19":"tag-uk","20":"tag-united-kingdom","21":"tag-unitedkingdom","22":"tag-wealth-management-firm"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/420277","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=420277"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/420277\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/420278"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=420277"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=420277"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=420277"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}