{"id":619908,"date":"2026-05-02T21:01:13","date_gmt":"2026-05-02T21:01:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/619908\/"},"modified":"2026-05-02T21:01:13","modified_gmt":"2026-05-02T21:01:13","slug":"how-i-plan-to-spend-28bn-of-your-money","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/619908\/","title":{"rendered":"How I plan to spend \u00a328bn of your money"},"content":{"rendered":"

Oliver Holbourn is midway through explaining the work of the National Wealth Fund when he jumps up from his seat and stretches against a desk.<\/p>\n

The need to stand up is caused by a tennis injury sustained more than 20 years ago. \u201cI had two bulging discs, one split. I had a back operation \u2014 so it\u2019s just a condition I have to manage,\u201d the chief executive of the Leeds-based institution says to explain his fidgeting.<\/p>\n

Still, it helps keep him on his toes. Holbourn knows he has a job on his hands justifying the very existence of the NWF, which has \u00a327.8 billion of taxpayer funding to dole out to worthy projects. Holbourn, 48, wants it to become an \u201cenduring financial institution\u201d. As a result, he is focused on making a profit to prove the institution\u2019s worth.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cI will not apologise for trying to make a profit for the taxpayer, because any change in administration will always bring questions around what we do,\u201d he says. \u201cIf we can prove that we\u2019re having a really big impact, and we\u2019re making a profit, that\u2019s really a much more powerful position for us to continue to do what we want and we think is necessary.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf we\u2019re not a profit-making institution, then what are we? We\u2019re a grant-giving institution. That\u2019s not what we were set up to do.\u201d<\/p>\n

That Holbourn \u2014 usually known as Olly \u2014 is only six months into the role and already thinking about the long term is explained by the UK\u2019s short history with such institutions.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"OliverOliver Holbourn at the National Wealth Fund\u2019s head office in Leeds: \u201cI will not apologise for trying to make a profit for the taxpayer\u201dANDREW MCCAREN FOR THE SUNDAY TIMES<\/p>\n

A predecessor body, the Green Investment Bank, was set up in 2012 but privatised five years later. The current NWF traces its roots back to June 2021, when it was set up under the Conservatives as the UK Investment Bank. It was rebranded and rebooted in October 2024\u00a0by Rachel Reeves to invest in a wider range of projects. Some politicians are already querying its future; Reform UK, for instance, has floated the idea of a fund backed by local government pension pots rather than the taxpayer.<\/p>\n

Holbourn is now at the heart of the chancellor\u2019s growth mission. He has been given the task of \u201ccrowding in\u201d private sector funding that is three times greater than the sum pumped in by taxpayers. He wants to form partnerships with banks, insurance companies and other investors on projects that might otherwise be too risky for the private sector to fund.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re trying to help the country to grow,\u201d he says. \u201cWe\u2019re trying to help the country consume more clean energy at lower prices.\u201d <\/p>\n

The National Wealth Fund also invests in infrastructure such as fibre connections and defence. \u201cHopefully as a result of our investments, our [UK] nations will be more resilient,\u201d he says. \u201cWith what\u2019s going on in the world, the ability for these brilliant nations of ours to be more resilient over time is super important.\u201d<\/p>\n

Holbourn is speaking from a compact meeting room at the NWF\u2019s head office in Leeds, where most of its 375 staff work. It is the anchor tenant in a landmark waterfront redevelopment just minutes from the railway station. On a glorious spring day, the area is buzzing with office workers enjoying the sun at lunchtime. This Yorkshire city has become a mini-financial centre; outposts of the Financial Conduct Authority and the Bank of England are nearby.<\/p>\n

\"LeedsLeeds now has a thriving financial districtGETTY IMAGES<\/p>\n

Holbourn, who requires staff to spend three days a week in the office, says \u201cthe greatness of being in Leeds is that it enables quicker travel to Scotland and Wales \u2026 and it\u2019s good that the government apparatus is more evenly spread [out of London]\u201d.<\/p>\n

The NWF provides guarantees and debt to get projects off the ground. It is behind Britain\u2019s first reservoir since 1991 (in Hampshire), a gigafactory in Sunderland<\/a>, and fast fibre connections in Northern Ireland. It also takes some equity stakes in companies, notably in a tin mine in Cornwall. On top of this, the NWF oversees the \u00a336.6 billion pumped into the Sizewell C nuclear plant on the Suffolk coast, but does not include this in its metrics.<\/p>\n

Holbourn is a banker by training. He grew up in Barnes, southwest London, to an accountant father and a mother who stayed at home. Sent to boarding school in Tonbridge, Kent, he describes \u201ca loving, happy upbringing\u201d with a younger brother. After studying law at Oxford, he joined the graduate scheme at what was then Merrill Lynch (now Bank of America), where he met his wife, Charlotte, who worked in marketing.<\/p>\n

\"ConstructionThe Sunderland gigafactory under construction in 2023. Battery production began late last yearJOANNE COATES\/GETTY IMAGES<\/p>\n

He left the private sector in 2013 to join UK Financial Investments, the body set up to look after the taxpayer stakes in the banks bailed out in the financial crisis, such as NatWest (then Royal Bank of Scotland) and Lloyds Banking Group. He became UKFI chief executive three years later.<\/p>\n

He was persuaded to join UKFI by its then-chairman Sir Robin Budenberg, who now chairs Lloyds. Budenberg describes Holbourn as \u201cunflappable\u201d and a banker who \u201ccares about policy and the country\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe\u2019s also a really nice guy. He has a very low ego and does not take things in a personal way. In the job he\u2019s doing now, that\u2019s absolutely key as he has to bring lots of people together. Where people feel you\u2019re doing the right thing for the country and you don\u2019t care about yourself, it makes people want to work with you,\u201d says Budenberg.<\/p>\n

Holbourn joined NatWest, one of the banks he had been overseeing, in 2018. Hired just before Dame Alison Rose took the chief executive seat, he became closely associated with her strategy and was posted to Jersey in 2022 to lead RBS International. <\/p>\n

He had not been on the island long when Rose was ousted in 2023 amid the furore over Nigel Farage\u2019s bank account at Coutts<\/a>, NatWest\u2019s private banking subsidiary. He gives a politician\u2019s answer when asked about his views on her departure: \u201cI was actually far away from HQ when all that happened. I have a human reaction, but at the end of the day what happened, happened,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

Holbourn left NatWest last June; in his words, \u201cmy time was up\u201d. He had been planning to return to university to study behavioural science when the NWF job came up.<\/p>\n

He describes a life of \u201clogistic gymnastics\u201d as his wife remains in Jersey while the youngest of their three children finishes primary school, with the older two in boarding schools. He describes two of his three children as \u201cmildly neurodiverse \u2026 and getting on brilliantly\u201d.<\/p>\n

\"Oliver\u201cMy time was up,\u201d Holbourn says of his decision to leave NatWestANDREW MCCAREN FOR THE SUNDAY TIMES<\/p>\n

The NWF is one of a number of public financial institutions, such as Great British Energy and the British Business Bank, intended to get investment into Britain. It can be an infuriating experience for businesses. For instance, Darren Davidson, vice-president of Siemens Energy UK and Ireland, told MPs on the Treasury select committee in June 2025 that companies working in offshore wind had access to 23 schemes in the UK.<\/p>\n

Holbourn says this raises the question of \u201chow do you make sure that whoever the customer is, whatever door they knock on, they get the right help? The important thing we\u2019re trying to formalise is that there is \u2018no wrong door\u2019 \u201d.<\/p>\n

What he means is that if a company approaches one of the bodies for support, there will be a formal mechanism to refer the applicant to another body. With this in mind, he is working on a \u201cset of principles\u201d to speed up the application process, which is currently open ended.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think you should get an acknowledgement of the receipt\u00a0of your application within 24, 48 hours. And then, I think, you should get an initial view on whether this is something we can take further within a week or two,\u201d says Holbourn.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Within two months of taking over, he set out a strategic review outlining 25 sectors \u2014 from innovative technology to strategic infrastructure \u2014 that the National Wealth Fund will back. He has committed to focusing on \u201cplace-based\u201d investment to work with local governments. The NWF has \u201cstrategic partnerships\u201d with regional authorities in Manchester, Glasgow, the West Midlands and West Yorkshire.<\/p>\n

In this strategic review, Holbourn is clear about a \u201cstep change\u201d in approvals, aiming for \u00a35 billion worth of projects a year \u2014 a faster pace than the \u00a38.4 billion allocated since the NWF\u2019s creation. So far it has managed to \u201ccrowd in\u201d \u00a317 billion of private funding. While this falls short of the goal of \u00a33 for every \u00a31 it puts in, the NWF points out that this is a long-term goal.<\/p>\n

To speed up processes, Holbourn says he is decentralising decision-making to give staff more autonomy: \u201cYou need to give people freedom and catch them if they fall.\u201d<\/p>\n

He also wants to be more proactive in setting out the types of projects backed by the NWF. Currently, 80 per cent of these result from applications, but he wants to reduce that to 50 per cent and intends to produce some research on this \u201cwithin the next two months\u201d.<\/p>\n

This means looking at the 25 sectors that the NWF is targeting and being \u201cfront-footed\u201d in approaching companies for private investment opportunities.<\/p>\n

\u201cI want us to be clearer on what are the problems we\u2019re trying to solve, and then making sure we have the pipeline we want rather than one that we necessarily have,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

From all this, he wants to make a profit \u2014 in aggregate, not per project (and not including Sizewell C<\/a>); last year, the fund made a \u00a3152 million loss. \u201dWe will have some things that do not go as well as we expected, and we will have others that go better than we expected. But in aggregate, by 2031, we want to be better than break even,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

By then a new government will be in power and the NWF will need fresh funding. Holbourn is ready to be judged on: \u201cHave we done a good enough job to prove that we deserve additional capital, wherever that comes from? We have to prove that.\u201d.<\/p>\n

He ends on his theme of the NWF\u2019s longevity: \u201cSuccess to me is that whenever I go \u2014 and there\u2019s no thought of that at the moment \u2014 [I will be] passing the baton on to someone where the organisation\u2019s in a better place and we are on our way to becoming an enduring public financial institution.\u201d <\/p>\n

\"AHolbourn fulfilled his \u201cdream to swim with whale sharks\u201d at Ningaloo Reef in AustraliaREINHARD DIRSCHERL\/GETTY IMAGES <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Oliver Holbourn is midway through explaining the work of the National Wealth Fund when he jumps up from…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":619909,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[39],"tags":[28,147,530],"class_list":["post-619908","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-personal-finance","tag-business","tag-personal-finance","tag-personalfinance"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/619908","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=619908"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/619908\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/619909"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=619908"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=619908"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=619908"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}