Winning this award highlights NatWest’s leading position in the Sterling market as the Number one underwriter of GBP FIG issuances in the poll’s evaluation period. Offering diverse products across Covered Bonds, Senior, and Capital, FIGs frequently appointed NatWest for inaugural GBP deals. Furthermore, we brought innovative structures to the market to support AT1 and Tier 2 refinancings - transactions included: Shawbrook’s AT1 Exchange Offer, Sainsbury’s Bank Tier 2 New Issue and Tender, and Secure Trust Bank’s Tier 2 refinancing. 

At the same time, we continued to develop the GBP sustainable debt market with transactions such as the Co-operative Bank’s inaugural GBP green Senior HoldCo, Deutsche Pfandbriefbank’s debut GBP Green Bond, Bank of Ireland’s inaugural GBP Green Bond, and Intesa’s debut green GBP SNP.

Jacob Gilbert, Head of FI Syndicate, commented: “We’re thrilled to have won this prestigious award, and we thank everyone who voted for us. This accolade is testament to our ambition to continuously develop the Sterling market through innovative issuances for our FIG customers, in particular sustainable debt issuances. We are also proud that the market recognises our One Bank approach which means that multiple specialist teams within NatWest collaborate closely to ensure quick decision making and delivering the best outcome and best service for our customers.”

With this award, participants in the poll not only acknowledged our expertise in managing execution risk and identifying constructive windows for our issuers but also our determination to broaden the GBP market by attracting new SSA issuers to seek GBP denominated funding via conventional and sustainable debt transactions.

Deals during the relevant period included KFW’s GBP transaction in November last year – NatWest acted as Joint Lead Manager - which reopened the market after the GBP SSA market had effectively shut amidst a volatile UK market backdrop and resulted in a strong book oversubscription for the issuer. We also helped our customer, EIB, capitalise this demand with a £650 million Sustainability Awareness Bond tap in the same week as the KfW issuance.

Furthermore, in May 2022, NatWest worked with the German State of Saxony-Anhalt to issue its inaugural GBP benchmark. With German state, North-Rhine Westphalia, having been the only German state to have accessed the public GBP market previously, our Sterling franchise enabled the issuer to reach the breadth of UK accounts. Other noteworthy conventional deals with NatWest participation included: Bpifrance’s first ever public GBP benchmark, and Quebec’s Sep-26 syndication, the Canadian province’s first GBP public issuance since 2019 and its largest Sterling offering on record.

Looking at sustainable debt issuances, we helped KFW issue its second GBP Green Bond, following on from our involvement with KfW’s first GBP Green Bond issued in 2019. Likewise, our Joint Lead Manager (JLM) role on IADB’s GDP Sustainable Development Bond in 2022 followed our JLM role for the development bank’s inaugural Sterling denominated SDB back in 2019.  

Kerr Finlayson, Head of Frequent Borrowers Group Syndicate, NatWest, said: “Being recognised as ‘Most Impressive SSA House in Sterling’ is a fantastic achievement, and we are proud that our expertise in the Sterling market and our commitment to broaden this market to deliver the best results for SSA issuers and for investors alike has been valued by the GlobalCapital poll participants. Thank you.” 

Utilising liability management to improve the efficiency of NatWest Group’s capital stack has been a priority for a number of years, with several effective transactions across USD, EUR and GBP, ranging from senior to legacy tier 1 capital and issuing entities, including a number of NatWest Groups subsidiaries. 

In August 2022, NatWest Group redeemed ~$3.6bn of debt across senior and Tier 2 debt issued by NatWest Group and NatWest Markets N.V. one of the largest exercises from a European issuer in recent years. In April-2023, following the UBS-Credit Suisse merger (and subsequent write of $ AT1 securities) as well as U.S regional banking related market volatility NWG dynamically tendered for shorter dated tier 2 bonds further optimising their capital stack. 

[In addition, NatWest Group has used the contractual call options on GBP bonds reducing interest expense]

Scott Forrest, Head of Treasury DCM and Capital Management commented “We are delighted to have been recognised by our institutional investors and stakeholders as the most impressive Financial Institutional at using Liability Management, having repurchased over £6.5bn of capital and senior securities since 2020.   Managing our liabilities for value, whilst providing liquidity to our investors, has been a key part of our strategy. Many thanks to all who voted for us in this category”