The specialist lender Shawbrook has been valued at £725m in a stock market flotation in which the veteran banker Sir George Mathewson had a key role.
Mathewson was the chief executive and then the chairman of RBS until 2006 and is the chairman of Shawbrook, which was created in 2011 and provides loans to small and medium-sized UK businesses and consumers.
His role is likely to be brief, however, as he said earlier this month that he would step down from the board once a successor had been found.
Shawbrook, which is backed by funds advised by Pollen Street Capital, priced its initial public offering at 290p per share and said it expected to raise £90m from the flotation. It sold 75m shares, or about 30% of its equity.
Its chief executive, Richard Pyman, said Shawbrook would be able to grow and become a better-known name in specialist business banking.
He said: “Our focus remains on providing UK customers with a fresh, pragmatic approach to lending and savings while driving further growth by maximising opportunities in existing markets, capitalising on the embedded growth in our current loan book and developing a range of products to facilitate expansion into adjacent segments.”
Customer loans increased by 70% in 2014 to £2.3bn.
Shawbrook’s flotation comes amid a flurry of stock market activity in the financial sector. The challenger bank Aldermore floated earlier this month, valued at around £650m.
Meanwhile, the Spanish bank Sabadell has agreed to buy TSB – a spin-off of the bailed out Lloyds Banking Group – for £1.7bn.
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