Shawbrook expands loan book ahead of mooted London float
Specialist lender Shawbrook expanded its loan book in the first half of the year helping profit soar.
The bank – which is owned by private equity firm Pollen Street Capital – recorded a 35 per cent jump in profit before tax to £168.6m as its loan book grew 14 per cent to £17bn.
Deposits were also up 11 per cent to £16.7bn, compared to £15.8bn at the end of 2024.
The lender incurred a small rise in underlying administrative expenses, reaching £134.3m compared to £122.2m in the same period last year, but cited “one-off staff related costs” and the post-acquisition expenses of specialist automotive finance provider JBR Capital.
The takeover, which took place September last year, helped increase JBR Capital’s maximum amount it could fund on a single vehicle to £2m from £750,000.
Elsewhere, Shawbrook’s CET1 ratio – a crucial indicator of its financial health – edged up 0.1 per cent as the lender strengthened its core capital.
Shawbrook eyes City float
It comes as the firm eyes a flotation on the London Stock Exchange in a much needed boost to the City markets.
The Financial Times reported last month that Shawbrook was pressing ahead with plans for an IPO as soon as the second half of 2025 with a target valuation of £2bn.
The bank’s owners had been exploring multiple routes of expansion for Shawbrook over the last year including a £5bn merger with UK fintech Starling and a potential takeover of high street lender Metro Bank.
Marcelino Castrillo, chief executive of Shawbrook, said the lender expected further growth across its four core segments of SMEs, real estate, retail mortgages and consumer.
Castrillo added the firm had begun to embed AI across operations with the “enhancements” helping to reduce the bank’s cost of risk – a key metric indicating total expected losses from credit defaults, operational failures, and other risks – shrinking to 42 basis points.