NatWest Group PLC (NWG) Q2 2025 Earnings Call

Investor webinar replay

Replay transcript excerpt

Good morning and welcome to NatWest Group's H1 2025 results management presentation. Today's presentation will be hosted by CEO Paul Thwaite and CFO Katie Murray. After the presentations, we will take questions. Good morning and thank you for joining us. I'll start with a brief business update. Katie will take you through the numbers and we'll then open it up for questions. You will all be aware that since our first quarter results, the government has sold its remaining stake in NatWest Group. So we are now privately owned for the first time in 17 years. This is clearly an important milestone. With government ownership and a significant restructuring of the bank behind us, we are attracting new investors and driving growth. Customer activity has helped to deliver a strong first half. So let's turn to the financial headlines. Customer lending grew 3.2% to $384 billion. Customer deposits were up 1% to $436 billion. And assets under management and administration grew 5.9% to $52 billion. This has driven strong financial performance. Income grew 13.7% to 8 billion, while costs reduced 1.4% to 3.9 billion. This resulted in operating profit of 3.6 billion and attributable profit of 2.5 billion. Our return on tangible equity was 18.1%. Earnings for sure were up 28% at 31 pence. We have announced an interim dividend of 9.5 pence, up 58%, reflecting our higher payout ratio, and TNAV per share grew 16% to 351 pence. Our CET1 ratio is stable at 13.6%, with strong levels of capital and liquidity. Successful execution of our strategy is driving strong capital generation, which allows us to invest in the business, support customer growth and deliver attractive returns for shareholders. We are pleased to announce a new share buyback today of $750 million. Together with the interim ...