Global Restructuring Group was set up to nurture business customers that were in financial distress back to financial health but was found by regulators to be more focused on profiting at customers’ expense, through so-called “property participation agreements” and asset seizures.
A Financial Conduct Authority report published in 2018 found evidence of widespread mistreatment of businesses by GRG.
Holloway stole £274,811 between 2012 and 2016 from clients whose business portfolios he controlled. Prosecutor Sineidin Corrins said: “Stuart Holloway’s criminal conduct amounted to an egregious betrayal of trust. His job within RBS’s Global Restructuring Group was to help vulnerable customers whose businesses were in financial difficulties. Instead, he exploited that relationship by stealing a significant amount of money from them in return for preferential treatment. This is not a victimless crime and only added to the financial woes of those involved.
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“Holloway warned one customer, Gerard d’Agostino – who owned a chain of pubs and other properties in the Lothians, had debts of around £1.8m with RBS, and whose banking was transferred to GRG in 2012 – that he “might be sequestered” if he did not sell his assets. Holloway demanded £20,000 to help d’Agostino pay for one of his parent’s remarriage. Holloway continuously asked for money in order not sequestrate D’Agostino’s wife, or to release her from the personal guarantee, according to prosecutors.
“Between March 2012 and February 2013, d’Agostino, who died in 2023, ended up paying £109,511 into bank accounts controlled by Holloway or members of his family.
“A second businessman, James Gilmour, was persuaded to transfer his business banking into GRG to get “a better deal on his accounts” after bumping into Holloway in a bar in Spain in 2012. Gilmour had assets of £3.9m, with loans of £3.2m, and Holloway told him there was “a lot” he could do to assist him with his finances but “nothing was for nothing”.
Holloway began to repeatedly seek payments from Gilmour, to be paid into his own personal bank accounts, plus the accounts of family members and a friend. Gimour had to sell a property in Spain in order to finance these payments. Gimour also re-mortgaged his family home at Holloway’s suggestion, increasing the mortgage from £90,000 to £590,000, and paying the £500,000 towards the money owed to the bank.
Holloway insisted to Mr Gilmour that this was all above board, despite the fact the money was for him personally and not for the bank. Between March 2013 and October 2015, Gilmour paid out a total of £165,300 into personal bank accounts connected to Holloway. Holloway’s conduct was reported to RBS management by a customer in 2016 and Police Scotland were called in to investigate.
At the hearing in Edinburgh Sheriff Court, defence advocate Scott Dignan claimed Holloway “had in no way threatened and in no way attempted to extort anyone,” adding “he fully accepts he was in a position of trust due to his employment and that, in the course of his employment, he breached that trust.”
“The entirety of the funds paid to Mr Holloway were unfortunately part of his severe gambling difficulties that began in 2010.”
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In 2013 the UK government’s entrepreneur-in-residence, Lawrence Tomlinson, revealed that GRG took advantage of struggling businesses to secretly boost RBS and NatWest’s profits. Under the threat of foreclosure of loans, the bank seized control of customer assets from businesses it claimed were struggling, even though they had often not defaulted on their loans. Managers within GRG were able to enhance their bonuses by identifying business customers which could be squeezed, in what RBS itself called “Project: Dash for Cash”. Around 16,000 UK small and medium sized enterprises were forced into the division, with total loans outstanding of £65bn.
Addressing Holloway in his sentencing remarks, Sheriff Charles Walls said “Both charges of which you now stand convicted are offences under section 2(3) of the Bribery Act 2010… It is impossible to conclude that your culpability was anything other than high. You and you alone benefited from these offences which were committed in a calculated and persistent manner.”
“You were in a senior position of trust within RBS and that you deliberately targeted the complainers due to their perceived financial vulnerabilities and/or ability to make payments to you. “These are serious offences. The sums of money involved are high, as is your culpability, and harm done by your criminal acts…. In the circumstances, there is no alternative to mark the gravity of these offences other than by the imposition of a custodial sentence.”
A NatWest Group spokesperson said: “The criminal activity that Stuart Holloway has been sent to prison is totally unacceptable and relates to the unauthorised, private behaviour of one individual, which was conducted for his own benefit and fell entirely outside the bank’s policies and processes for the treatment of customers.”
