(Bloomberg) -- UK lender NatWest Group Plc is poised for its biggest annual gain in more than three decades as lofty interest rates burnish earnings and the government prepares to exit a stake acquired during the global financial crisis.
The Edinburgh-based firm’s stock has risen 89% in 2024 in a rally that’s only been outpaced on the FTSE 100 by that of jet-engine maker Rolls-Royce Holdings Plc. The latest boost for NatWest came on Friday as analysts at JPMorgan Chase & Co. named the stock one of their top picks.
NatWest rose as much as 1.5% after JPMorgan’s Sheel Shah and colleagues lifted their earnings estimates and put the lender on “positive catalyst watch” ahead of quarterly results due Feb. 14.
They cited the benefits of its fixed-income investments — known as the structural hedge — as well an expected full privatization of the firm by mid-next year.
To be sure, even after this year’s surge, the company formerly known as Royal Bank of Scotland Group Plc still only trades at a fraction of its price before the financial crisis more than a decade and a half ago.
The stock changed hands for 416 pence as of 1:46 p.m. in London on Friday — compared with a 2007 record closing price of 6,490 pence.
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