NatWest’s Sir Howard Davies: ‘I’m quite pessimistic. Brexit was a significant mistake’
Sir Howard Davies is a worried man. He is worried about political polarisation. He is worried about the long-term impact of Brexit on the City of London. And he is worried by the pushback against globalisation.
One thing he is not especially worried about is the health of the bank he chairs, NatWest, which in its former guise as Royal Bank of Scotland was on the edge of collapse during the global financial crisis of 2008.
Davies has been chair of NatWest for seven years and the turning point in the bank’s fortunes, he says, was paying a $4.9bn (£3.6bn) fine to the US authorities in 2018 for its role in the sub-prime mortgage crisis. Until that point, NatWest had been “scrambling behind the sofa” to find capital, but now it is in better financial shape than many comparable European banks and has been able to expand. It has, he says, been “a game of two halves”.
The footballing metaphor is telling because Davies has another concern. As a lifelong Manchester City fan, he fears his side will be pipped to the Premier League title by Liverpool in Sunday’s last round of matches. To mitigate the
Age 71
Family Married to a lapsed journalist. Two sons, one left, one right.
Education Bowker Vale primary; Manchester grammar school; Memorial University of Newfoundland; Merton College, Oxford; Stanford business school.
Pay “The usual answers are ‘enough’ or ‘no comment’, but £750,000 is published in NatWest’s accounts.”
Last holiday Cycling along a section of the Rhine path. “One day I will complete it.”
Best advice he’s been given “Always show you could do your boss’s job if required.”
Biggest career mistake “Agreeing to be director of the LSE. It ended in tears.”
Word he overuses “Guardiola, as in ‘we’ve got Guardiola’, sung to the tune of
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