UK Government Investments Annual Report and Accounts 2022-23

UK Government Investments Ltd (UKGI) today publishes its annual report and accounts covering the financial year to 31 March 2023.

This past year has been one of strengthening our proposition. We deliberately set out to focus on our core capabilities as an organisation and further professionalise across our four objectives so we can continue to offer expert advice to government departments and attractive development opportunities for our people. Key achievements over the year have included:

• UKGI’s portfolio of assets now stands at 24. Over the year we have taken on a new role for Sizewell C and a monitoring role for BBC Commercial. We successfully completed our role with the UK Green Investment Platform, with the corporate vehicle being liquidated following the successful disposal of its remaining entities. We have continued to strengthen UKGI as a centre of excellence for corporate governance across government by promoting our model and maintaining and sharing our knowledge and expertise.
• We have undertaken a key advisory role in some of the most high-profile national security transactions facing government, across aerospace, space, telecoms and the digital sectors. Major cases involving high profile economic interests include work to protect the futures of Megitt plc. and Ultra Electronics Holdings plc in the UK, and the Sale of Chelsea Football Club to a new consortium of investors.
• The Special Situations Group took a lead advisory role supporting departments in some of the most high profile situations facing government including in respect of Bulb Energy Limited as well as supporting departments with matters arising from the ongoing war in Ukraine and supporting the launch of the Energy Markets Financing Scheme.
• The Contingent Liability Central Capability published its first report in July 2022 setting out the importance of contingent liability management and has developed a new, cross-government data collection in order to produce its report into the current Contingent Liability landscape across Government. The importance of this work has been highlighted in Public Accounts Committee meetings and in HM Treasury’s 2022 Autumn Statement. The team has also continued to advise policy teams across government on structuring, managing, and charging for contingent liabilities, and has driven standardisation across departments, thereby reducing inconsistencies and inefficiencies.
• Further progress has been made towards full disposal of the UK government’s shareholding in NatWest. The existing Trading Plan was extended for a further 12-month period – since launch, the Trading Plan has delivered over £3.7bn for the taxpayer, and government’s ownership stood at around 42% as at 31 March 2023. In parallel, UKGI Financial Institutions Group has continued to engage closely with the NWG Board and Executive team on stewardship issues throughout the year. As noted in the Report and Accounts, further progress has been made since that date.
• We successfully delivered our People Action Plan. Excellent progress was made against the key themes of connectivity, reward/recognition, work-life balance, hybrid working, leadership and culture. We have exceeded our formal gender diversity target with 46% of senior management now female and met our target to have 10% of the senior management cadre identifying from an ethnically diverse background. UKGI’s mean gender pay gap composition over the past five years has gradually shifted from 27.2% at 31 March 2018 to 6.6% as at 31 March 2023 and this underlines our commitment to furthering diversity and inclusion.

Charles Donald, Chief Executive of UKGI, said:

“UKGI’s agile way of bringing together teams where each member is working on a few different projects at one time enables flexibility in our delivery to departments and also enhances the opportunities available to colleagues. With our culture of support, professionalism and collaboration, our organisation stands ready to support departments in delivering their priorities in the coming year.”

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Notes to Editors

UK Government Investments creates value for society from government’s most complex commercial interests

UKGI acts as shareholder for, and leads the establishment of, UK government arm’s length bodies; it advises on all major UK government corporate finance matters, including financial interventions into corporate structures and corporate finance negotiations; it analyses and advises on the UK government’s contingent liabilities; and it acquires, manages and executes the sale of all significant UK government corporate assets. 

UKGI is owned by HM Treasury and independently managed with a Board comprised predominantly of independent non-executive directors. UKGI works closely with both the private and public sectors, advising and interacting with ministers, Parliament and Whitehall departments. 

For further information contact Tavistock:
[email protected]
David Cracknell – [email protected] – 07703 492 993
Lulu Bridges – [email protected] – 07831 170 364