A trio of City law firms have landed roles guiding NatWest’s £2.7bn acquisition of Evelyn Partners, a deal set to form one of the largest wealth management and private banking businesses in the UK.
Slaughter and May is acting for NatWest in the deal, the group’s largest since its 2008 state bailout at the height of the global financial crisis, according to Reuters. Macfarlanes is acting for Evelyn Partners and Linklaters is representing private equity owners Permira and Warburg Pincus.
Evelyn Partners boasts £69bn of assets under management and offers services spanning financial planning and investment management as well as its online direct-to-consumer investment platform Bestinvest.
Following its acquisition, it will sit alongside Coutts, NatWest’s private banking arm, and more than double the group’s total assets under management and administration to £127bn.
The deal comes as NatWest focuses on its core domestic retail and commercial banking businesses, and as British lenders including Lloyds and HSBC increasingly target fee-based businesses to offset an anticipated decline in income from interest as central bank rates fall, Reuters reported.
NatWest said the Evelyn acquisition would increase its fee income by around 20% on a pre-revenue synergies basis.
The Slaughters team acting for NatWest is led by London corporate partners David Watkins, Nick Pacheco and Thomas Peacock, with the Linklaters team headed by London partners Alex Woodward and Chris Boycott.
Meanwhile, Macfarlanes’ team is led by London corporate partner Tom Rose, a longstanding advisor to Evelyn Partners who in 2024 guided the £700m sale of its professional services arm to PE firm Apax.
Permira’s involvement goes back to 2014 when it invested in Bestinvest, later making a series of acquisitions, including Tilney and Smith & Williamson to form the group known as Evelyn Partners. Assets under management increased from £5bn to £69bn under Permira’s majority ownership, with Warburg Pincus becoming a minority investor in the company in 2020.
The transaction, which is subject to customary regulatory approvals, is expected to complete in the summer of 2026. Evercore Partners and Goldman Sachs are acting as financial advisers to Evelyn Partners, and Ardea Partners and BofA Securities are serving as joint lead financial advisers to NatWest. UBS is also acting as a financial adviser to NatWest.
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