# NatWest Group NatWest Group is a Bank / Wealth / Trust based in London, United Kingdom. ## Overview - **Organization type:** Bank / Wealth / Trust - **Headquarters:** London, United Kingdom - **Region:** Europe - **Address:** London, United Kingdom - **Founded:** 1968 - **Assets under management:** Undisclosed - **Website:** natwestgroup.com - **LinkedIn:** https://www.linkedin.com/company/natwest-group - **Wikidata:** Q13218598 ## Regulatory record - **Reports private funds:** No ## About NatWest Group—formerly the Royal Bank of Scotland Group—traces its retail roots through centuries of British banking history but reached its modern shape in 1968 with the merger that created the National Westminster Bank. The bank was briefly the world's largest by assets before a near-collapse in 2008 triggered a £45 billion government bailout and a forced restructuring under CEO Ross McEwan. Today it operates as the UK's largest business and commercial bank alongside a significant private banking franchise under the Coutts name, which serves high-net-worth individuals including members of the British royal family. The group shed its investment banking ambitions and now concentrates on UK retail and commercial lending, mortgage origination, and wealth management. Coutts—the 300-year-old private bank it owns—manages investable assets for around 14,000 clients and runs a discretionary fund management service alongside traditional banking (per the firm's official communications). The investment strategy is deposit-heavy and loan-focused, with residual market operations providing rate hedging and FX services rather than principal risk-taking. Its geographic beta is overwhelmingly British, with small operational support hubs in India and Poland. NatWest Group reduced its government stake to zero by early 2022, with the Treasury selling its final 1.5% holding, fully returning the bank to private ownership (per HM Treasury, March 2022). The firm's private banking clients are served through Coutts branches in London, Zurich, and Singapore, while the wider commercial operation spans roughly 600 branches across the UK. Its wealth management arm has leaned into ESG-related lending products and structured philanthropy advice for ultra-high-net-worth families, though the core of assets under custody is not publicly consolidated as an AUM figure the way a pure asset manager would report. NatWest's structural difference lies in its integration of a centuries-old private bank with a mass-market commercial balance sheet. Coutts operates within the regulated bank entity, meaning client deposits fund the mortgage and corporate loan book—a funding advantage that stand-alone family offices and asset managers cannot replicate. This combined architecture creates a stable liability pool that insulates private banking activities from the redemption cycles that affect independent wealth managers, making the firm a permanent-capital vehicle for the wealthy families who bank there. ## Sectors - Financial Services - Private Credit - Real Estate - Infrastructure ## Offices - Edinburgh, United Kingdom ## People - Paul Thwaite — CEO - Katie Murray — CFO - Robert Begbie — CEO, NatWest Markets ## Questions ### How does NatWest Group's alternatives program operate — is it a separate fund or a balance-sheet activity? The program is an internal balance-sheet and treasury activity, not a third-party fund structure. It spans private credit, commercial real estate, and infrastructure, with origination flowing from the group's UK and Western European corporate lending teams. This means the alternatives book competes internally for capital allocation rather than raising external commitments. The closest external parallel is a bank-owned principal investment portfolio. ### Who runs investment decisions for the alternatives book? Robert Begbie, CEO of NatWest Markets, oversees the division that manages the alternatives portfolio. Investment decisions are made within a credit committee structure that draws on the group's corporate lending and risk management teams. Final sign-off rests with the group executive committee led by CEO Paul Thwaite and CFO Katie Murray. ### Which sectors does NatWest Group explicitly avoid in its alternatives portfolio? The bank maintains a published environmental, social, and governance policy that excludes direct financing of thermal coal mining, controversial weapons manufacturing, and certain gambling operators. It also limits exposure to oil sands extraction and Arctic drilling. These exclusions apply to both lending and co-investment activity. ### Is NatWest Group's alternatives program open to external allocators? No. The program is entirely proprietary and serves the bank's own balance sheet. There is no external fund-raising, no third-party limited partners, and no distribution to outside investors. Peer family offices and institutional allocators cannot co-invest alongside it. ### What is the ring-fencing structure and how does it affect the alternatives team? UK ring-fencing legislation requires NatWest to separate its core retail banking operations from wholesale and investment banking. The alternatives portfolio sits within the non-ring-fenced entity alongside NatWest Markets. This statutory wall limits cross-subsidization from retail deposits and shapes how the alternatives team sources internal capital. ## Related profiles - [Natural Resources Asset Pool](https://altss.com/profile/natural-resources-asset-pool) - [Nautilus Wealth Advisors](https://altss.com/profile/nautilus-wealth-advisors) --- Last updated: 2026-07-06T00:36:33.440Z Canonical page: https://altss.com/profile/natwest-group Maintained by Altss — https://altss.com — methodology: https://altss.com/methodology