FORM 6-K
SECURITIES AND EXCHANGE COMMISSION
Washington D.C. 20549
Report of Foreign Private Issuer
Pursuant to Rule 13a-16 or 15d-16
of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934
For
April 25, 2023
Commission
File Number: 001-10306
NatWest
Group plc
RBS,
Gogarburn, PO Box 1000
Edinburgh
EH12 1HQ
(Address
of principal executive offices)
Indicate
by check mark whether the registrant files or will file annual
reports under cover of Form 20-F or Form 40-F.
Form
20-F X Form 40-F
___
Indicate
by check mark if the registrant is submitting the Form 6-K in paper
as permitted by Regulation S-T Rule
101(b)(1):_________
Indicate
by check mark if the registrant is submitting the Form 6-K in paper
as permitted by Regulation S-T Rule
101(b)(7):_________
Indicate
by check mark whether the registrant by furnishing the information
contained in this Form is also thereby furnishing the information
to the Commission pursuant to Rule 12g3-2(b) under the Securities
Exchange Act of 1934.
Yes ___
No X
If
"Yes" is marked, indicate below the file number assigned to the
registrant in connection with Rule 12g3-2(b): 82-
________
The following information was issued as Company announcements
in London, England and is furnished pursuant to General Instruction
B to the General Instructions to Form
6-K:
NatWest Group
plc
Annual General Meeting Statements
25 April 2023
NatWest Group plc will hold its Annual General Meeting at 11.00
a.m. today. The meeting will deal with the proposed resolutions as
set out in the Notice of Meeting previously issued to
shareholders.
The following is an extract from the remarks to be made by Howard
Davies, Chairman, and Alison Rose, DBE, Chief Executive Officer, at
the meeting. The
remarks expand on those which were made at the Virtual Shareholder
Event held on 18 April 2023.
Howard Davies
Before Alison provides an update on the bank's performance and
progress against our purpose-led strategy, I will say a few words
from the Board's perspective on what was another eventful
year.
As countries finally opened up for business in 2022 after two years
of pandemic lockdowns, the global economy faced further pressures
resulting from the Russian invasion of Ukraine, which continues to
have a devastating impact on the people 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 increased costs and considerable
uncertainty.
In response, the Bank of England raised interest rates from 0.5 per
cent in February 2022 to 3.5 per cent at the end of the year, and
last month, they had increased to 4.25 per cent, the highest in 14
years.
While there are some grounds for cautious optimism, with employment
remaining high, the economic environment will remain challenging
for some time to come, with expected further tightening of consumer
spending and real incomes, which will put pressure on household
budgets.
The UK may or may not experience a technical recession in 2023,
economic forecasters differ on that point, but the economy is
unlikely to grow significantly.
In the first few months of the 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 in the
United States and some other lenders there. 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 those failures.
The NatWest Group, by contrast, has built a robust and resilient
balance sheet with strong capital and liquidity, a largely secured
retail loan book and well-diversified Commercial
lending.
Tight risk management underpins our strategy and ensures we are
well-positioned for the future.
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, the Group
performed strongly in 2022 with continued responsible growth in our
lending and progress against our strategy.
The bank's share price increased by 17.5 per cent in 2022,
outperforming our major UK peers.
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 you are voting
on today, 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 share buyback at our Full
Year Results.
And we were pleased to have the opportunity to buy back £1.2
billion of shares directly from the government.
The government also continued to sell shares into the market
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.
That is positive progress on the path to full
privatisation.
Today, we are seeking to renew our shareholder authority to
undertake further directed buybacks, should the Treasury give us
permission to do so.
Since the last AGM there have been a number of changes to the
Board.
Last October we welcomed Roisin Donnelly as a non-executive
director. She recently became a member of our Group Sustainable
Banking Committee and will assume the roles of Consumer Duty Board
Champion and Chair of the Colleague Advisory Panel following
today's meeting.
In December we said farewell to Robert Gillespie, who resigned
after nine years as a non-executive director. Lena Wilson succeeded
Robert as Chair of the Performance and Remuneration Committee in
September, allowing for an orderly handover.
On the first of April of this year, Stuart Lewis joined the Board
as a non-executive director and member of the Risk
Committee and Audit Committee. Subject to regulatory approval, he
will chair the Risk Committee from the beginning of August,
replacing Morten Friis who plans to step down at the end of July
after nine years' service.
Mike Rogers will leave the board at the conclusion of today's
meeting, and Yasmin Jetha will succeed Mike as Chair of the
Sustainable Banking Committee. The
remit of that Committee will expand to include matters currently
within the remit of the Technology and Innovation Committee, which
will be retired as a standalone Committee.
On our ring-fenced bank board, Graham Beale, who has been Senior
Independent Director there since 2018, has indicated his intention
to step down as a director at the end of July. Subject
to regulatory approval, another of our ring-fenced bank directors,
Ian Cormack, will succeed Graham as the Senior Independent Director
of NatWest Holdings from the beginning of August, and we will
recruit a third ring-fenced bank board director.
I would like to thank Robert, Morten, Mike and Graham for their
commitment, diligence and immense contributions during their time
with NatWest, and wish them well in the future.
Now is also an opportune time to update you on my own position. I
am approaching the point where I will have served 8 years on the
Board so it is appropriate to initiate the search for my successor
as Chairman in the coming months.
This will allow time for a rigorous search process and an orderly
handover, which I expect will take place at some point before I
reach nine years tenure in July 2024. That is the maximum
recommended in the UK Corporate Governance Code. The
search for my successor will be led jointly by the Senior
Independent Directors of NatWest Group and NatWest
Holdings.
Throughout the year, strategy and climate change remained high on
the Board's agenda.
Following strong shareholder support at last year's AGM for our
'Say on Climate' resolution, the Board continued its close
oversight of progress on our climate ambitions. And we were pleased
that we were able to publish the initial iteration of our Climate
transition plan in February.
As they did during the COVID-19 pandemic, Alison and her team have
continued to use the bank's Purpose to guide decision-making,
supporting our customers and continuing to lend responsibly while
growing the business.
I would also like to take this opportunity to thank our colleagues
who have also been exposed to the increased cost of living while
helping customers to manage their finances in a volatile period,
against a backdrop of rapidly rising interest rates and
inflation.
Looking at the year ahead, as I have said we expect the external
environment to remain challenging and we know that many people and
businesses are worried about the future.
Our Group is well positioned to stand alongside the customers,
colleagues and communities we serve and we are committed to
providing support to all our stakeholders through the challenges,
and the opportunities in the years to come.
The Board remains fully supportive of the bank's strategy which is
helping us to build long term value and deliver long term growth as
well as sustainable returns for our shareholders.
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 to champion people, families, and
businesses to help them thrive.
We delivered a strong financial performance last year reporting a
pre-tax operating profit of £5.1 billion and a return on
tangible equity of 12.3 per cent.
Income was up around 30 per cent and costs were down nearly 3 per
cent.
Lending across our three franchises grew by 6.7 per cent year on
year, as we continued to support our customers and the economy
responsibly, including £45 billion of gross new mortgage
lending and £24.5 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 the 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.
Yet, despite not seeing significant signs of financial distress or
changes in behaviour amongst our customers, we know that people,
families, and businesses across the country are
struggling.
We responded quickly and meaningfully to support our customers and
colleagues to navigate cost of living challenges. So far, we've
carried out around 700,000 free financial health checks, launched a
new cost of living hub and a benefits calculator, frozen standard
published tariffs on business current accounts for 12 months, and
provided £10 million of hardship funding through our charity
partners to help the most vulnerable in society.
We also provided around 60,000 colleagues with a one-off
£1,000 cash payment to support with the rising cost of living.
I would like to thank our colleagues for their continued hard work
in supporting our customers during such a volatile and uncertain
period.
Our customers are at the heart of everything we do, and we will
continue to ensure our services meet their needs. As with many
industries, customers are moving to mobile and online banking
because it is faster and easier. 90 per cent of our retail banking
customers' needs are now met digitally and we have invested in our
mobile and digital services to support them.
But we also recognise our responsibility to provide services that
work for all of our customers, including those who have challenges
moving online. As a result, there are today more ways to bank with
us than ever before, with over 16,000 points of presence for our
customers. Bank branches are, and will continue to be, an important
part of our services. We are continuing to invest, with £20
million invested in our existing branches whilst providing
continuous alternative services, such as our ongoing collaboration
with the Post Office, a dedicated support line for over 60s and
support for our most vulnerable customers from customer care
experts such as our Community Bankers.
Our values are at the heart of how we deliver our Purpose-led
strategy, and that strategy is working. We are continuing to make
strong progress to deliver long-term sustainable value and deliver
across core priorities of climate, learning and
enterprise.
Addressing climate change is one of the biggest issues of our
generation and supporting our customers in their transition to net
zero is a key strategic priority for the bank.
In 2022, we became the first UK bank, and one of the largest banks
globally to date, 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.
We provided £24.5 billion of Climate and Sustainable Funding
and Financing last year, against our target of £100 billion by
2025, and are determined to ensure our capital is being used to
support our customers' transition to net zero, whilst reducing the
financing of the most harmful activities.
And to support our customers, we are offering financing options and
practical tools to incentivise the transition to net zero. Our
Green Mortgages are providing cheaper finance, and through
collaborating with CoGo, and through our Carbon Planner, we are
helping Retail and Business customers track and understand their
carbon emissions.
Entrepreneurs are the lifeblood of the UK economy and we are
committed to supporting the next generation of founders to help
them thrive. Building on our position as the leading high street
bank for businesses, and 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 to scale up.
We know that £250 billion could be added to the economy if
women matched men in starting and scaling business. And in March,
we were the first European financial institution to issue a social
bond specifically designed to lend to women-led businesses - which
is a further demonstration of our unwavering commitment to
increasing the number of female-led businesses in the
country.
We are also a learning organisation and are actively committed to
breaking down the barriers for people to succeed. Through schemes
such as our MoneySense and CareerSense programmes, we are
championing learning and ensuring young people develop financial
literacy and employability skills. And our Digital Apprenticeships
are supporting those aged 16-24 to develop a career whilst
continuing with their education.
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 businesses play a vital role in driving the
change needed to ensure that children, families, and communities up
and down the country are empowered and equipped to meet their
potential.
I am very 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 more profitable
organisation.
Our fundamental strategy remains the same and we are creating ever
closer and deeper relationships with our customers at every stage
of their lives, support that starts earlier, reflects their values,
and meets their changing needs.
As we look to the future, our all-weather balance sheet, and
financial strength means that we are well positioned to respond to
new and emerging social, commercial, and economic trends that are
shaping the future of our customers' financial lives.
This means seeking new opportunities to drive growth through three
targeted areas in 2023, and beyond:
First, 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 need to ensure our services are embedded into
our customers' daily lives.
And thirdly, we have a huge role to play in supporting our
customers to transition to net zero and providing them with
tangible support to tackle the climate challenge head-on and
transition to a more sustainable low carbon economy.
To close, this year 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. We champion the potential of the people, families and
businesses we serve, when things are going well, and when things
are tough.
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,
communities and shareholders, 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.
Legal Entity Identifier:
2138005O9XJIJN4JPN90
Date: 25
April 2023
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NATWEST
GROUP plc (Registrant)
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By: /s/
Jan Cargill
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Name:
Jan Cargill
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Title:
Chief Governance Officer and Company Secretary
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