Royal Bank of Scotland Group PLC to rebrand as Natwest Group PLC next Wednesday

Team PLC () has stated it will formally rebrand by itself as Natwest Team PLC from July 22, retaining the RBS brand name at its Scottish branches but running as NatWest in its other marketplaces.

The banking giant, which also owns the Queen’s lender Coutts and is component-owned by the Uk taxpayer, stated it will make a subsequent announcement when the identify alter will take impact, although its ticker on the LSE will also alter.

Read through: RBS extends incentivised switching plan deadline for firms

RBS stated the identify alter options form component of a strategy to align its team identify “with the brand name underneath which the the greater part of our business is delivered”, as all over eighty% of the company’s consumer base originates from its Natwest division.

However, the identify alter may perhaps also be a transfer by the lender to lastly attract a line underneath the lingering toxicity of its RBS identify, which has ongoing to pervade considering that the 2008 economic crisis amid a litany of scandals over payment defense insurance (PPI), rate repairing and the behaviour of its Worldwide Restructuring Team (GRG) business unit.

A report printed by the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) previous calendar year uncovered that GRG had mistreated small and medium sized firms (SMEs) which were transferred to its regulate following the crash, with an unbiased evaluate also uncovering proof of options to drain firms of money in buy to obtain belongings and fairness and boost bonuses for specified workforce.

Rebrands: the fantastic, the terrible and the ugly

RBS’s imminent rebrand also is the hottest chapter in the chequered heritage of big corporate rebrands.

Probably 1 of the a lot more popular illustrations of a rebrand absent completely wrong was the 2001 identify alter of Royal Mail Team PLC () to ‘Consignia’, component of a strategy by then main executive John Roberts to expand the scope of the business and endeavor to thrust into global marketplaces.

The £2mln rebrand became an immediate laughing inventory and lasted all over sixteen months ahead of it was canned, with Roberts himself getting consigned to the listing of previous CEOs of the company shortly following.

Even though Royal Mail’s brief-lived rebrand was component of an effort to look to the long run of the business, the rebrand of Arthur Anderson’s consulting arm to in 2001 was, much like RBS, a bid to cut the corporation off from its harmful past.

Once 1 of the most broadly highly regarded accountancy corporations, Arthur Anderson’s reputation was remaining in tatters following its job in the personal bankruptcy of US energy giant Enron, which was uncovered to have utilized questionable accounting procedures to hide personal debt off its balance sheet which had been signed off by Anderson’s accountants.

However, some corporate rebrands have a lot more mundane ambitions in brain, these as the 2015 rebrand of research engine giant Google to ().

The tech company formed Alphabet as a guardian to the core research engine business, which remains its greatest asset, although also making it possible for it to scale the administration of its other business arms, a lot of of which involve investigate & progress corporations making technologies associated to self-driving vehicles and other so-called ‘moon-shot’ projects.

Shares in RBS were .four% reduce at 121p in mid-afternoon investing on Thursday.