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NatWest to absorb £24m cost of aborted "Tell Sid' ad campaign
The Guardian
|July 27, 2024
NatWest was forced to spend £24m on the former Conservative government's aborted "Tell Sid"-style campaign featuring Sir Trevor McDonald, which would have resulted in a chunk of the bank's state-owned shares being sold to the general public in a highly anticipated privatisation drive.
The expense emerged when the bank released its second-quarter results and announced that it was snapping up a number of mortgages from rival Metro Bank for £2.4bn.
Agreements with the government dating to the bank's bailout in 2008 meant NatWest was liable for costs linked to the campaign, including advertising, printing and distribution, as well as legal expenses.
The Tory government had already hired a fleet of advisers, including from Goldman Sachs, Barclays, the advertising house M&C Saatchi, the law firm Freshfields and the retail share sale experts Solid Solutions, to prepare the programme.
This story is from the July 27, 2024 edition of The Guardian.
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