Manage and execute the sale or purchase of significant corporate assets for the UK government
UKGI works across government to support departments on asset sales and acquisitions, advising ministers and senior officials on the best strategies and structures for a transaction. This includes carrying out market testing, as well as devising and managing the execution process to achieve value for money for the taxpayer. UKGI has a well-established reputation for selling assets where there is no policy reason for the government to hold the asset, and where the sale can achieve value for money.
The UKGI Financial Institutions Group (FIG) team is responsible for managing the government’s shareholding in NatWest and residual liabilities relating to UK Asset Resolution Ltd.
Holger Vieten
Director
Holger joined UKGI in May 2018 and is Director of UKGI’s Financial Institutions Group. He has spent over 20 years advising UK and European financial institutions on a broad range of mergers and acquisitions, capital markets and restructuring transactions. Before joining UKGI Holger was an investment banker at Moelis & Company for 8 years and previously at Morgan Stanley for 7 years having started his career at Credit Suisse.
Holger is a Non-Executive Director of Reclaim Fund Ltd and UK Asset Resolution Ltd.
Daniela Guzzardo
Executive Director
Daniela joined UKGI (formerly the Shareholder Executive) in 2013 following 12 years working in Equity Capital Markets for Citigroup.
Daniela has complemented her banking experience with further transaction work from a government perspective. This includes the multi-billion pound sale of NatWest Group shares and two Student Loans securitisation transactions. She was previously involved in the privatisation of Royal Mail. Daniela also worked on a range of governance assignments, including heading the shareholder team for the National Energy System Operator (NESO), and policy development projects such as the Shaw Report on Network Rail.
Chad Woodward
Executive Director
Chad re-joined UKGI in January 2023, having spent 4 years as the Deputy Trade Commissioner for the Middle East and Director of Trade & Investment for Saudi Arabia, based in the British Embassy in Riyadh. Chad spent the first 8 years of his career at Unilever. He then joined the Government in 2007 and worked on regulatory reform policy, asset sales and trade & investment. During Chad’s previous spell at UKGI, he worked on a range of corporate assets, including leading the student loan sale programme.
Case Studies
NatWest Group
Continuing our work to dispose of the government’s shareholding
As set out at Autumn Budget 2024, the government intends to fully dispose of the NWG (formerly Royal Bank of Scotland Group plc) shareholding by 2025-26, subject to market conditions and any sale achieving value for money. Advised by FIG, the government has made progress in this policy using a range of disposal methods, including off-market sales of shares back to NWG and an ongoing Trading Plan.
A Trading Plan, otherwise known as a “dribble out”, involves selling shares in the market through an appointed broker in an orderly way at market prices over the duration of the plan. Shares will only be sold at a price that represents value for money for taxpayers. Since launch in August 2021, the Trading Plan has delivered over £8.6bn for the taxpayer, as announced at Autumn Budget 2024. In April 2023, the Trading Plan was extended until August 2025.
The Trading Plan does not preclude the government from using other options to execute transactions that achieve value for money for taxpayers, including during the term of the Trading Plan, and FIG continue to actively seek opportunities for further disposal options when market conditions permit. For example, in November 2024, HMG successfully sold 3.2% of the company back to NatWest via a Directed Buyback, raising £1bn. This followed an earlier Directed Buyback in May 2024, when government sold £1.24bn worth of shares to NWG.
The government’s shareholding stood at 37% at the beginning of 2024. Following two Directed Buybacks and progress under the Trading Plan throughout the year, the shareholding was reduced to 10.99% by 21 November 2024.
In parallel, FIG has continued to engage closely with the NWG Board and Executive team on stewardship issues throughout the year. Over the past 12 months, UKGI has constructively engaged with NWG as it manages the government’s shareholding at arm’s length and on a commercial basis.
UK Asset Resolution Limited (UKAR)
UKAR was established in 2010 to manage the Bradford & Bingley and Northern Rock assets acquired during the financial crisis. After selling the retail franchises of Bradford & Bingley to Abbey National and Northern Rock to Virgin Money, a large proportion of the mortgages and other loan assets were sold in a series of transactions between 2014 and 2021, raising proceeds of c.£44 billion for the exchequer. The last transaction involved the sale of all remaining mortgage assets and the corporate entities of Bradford & Bingley and NRAM Limited for around £5 billion, ending the government’s ownership of these assets. UKGI worked with both UKAR and HM Treasury throughout, and played a pivotal role in providing expertise to help devise and implement sale strategies that delivered the government’s objectives and achieved value for money.
UKAR remains under government ownership. It operates as a ResiCo without any employees, and the work is outsourced to PwC and overseen by the UKAR Board. Its goal is to resolve the remaining legacy matters efficiently, paving the way for the company’s timely dissolution. UKGI continues to act as shareholder on behalf of HM Treasury, provides a Non-Executive Director on the Board, and now fulfils the company secretariat role.
Student loans sale
£3.6 billion raised in two innovative transactions
In December 2017 and December 2018, on behalf of the Department for Education (DfE), UKGI successfully completed two sales of part of the Plan One English student loans book, raising a total of £3.6bn. As well as ensuring value for money for the taxpayer, the two transactions were designed in such a way to ensure the position of all borrowers would not change as a result of the sale.
Structured as a multi-tranche securitisation backed by loans with income contingent repayments, these transactions launched a new asset class in the capital markets and attracted significant demand. The capital structure included 3 rated bonds and 1 unrated, with unique and innovative characteristics tailored to the long-term nature of the underlying loans, each designed to appeal to specific pools of capital.
UKGI’s model of combining public and private sector expertise produced a multi-disciplinary transaction team uniquely placed to deliver this complex and innovative project.