Metro Bank returns to profitability after cutting 30% of workforce
The lender made £80 million of annualised cost savings over the financial year.
Metro Bank has returned to profitability after overhauling its costs by slashing the number of staff and selling a portion of its mortgage book.
The lender, which secured a multimillion-pound rescue deal in 2023, said it had been a “pivotal” year.
Over the financial year, it made £80 million of annualised cost savings – primarily from reducing head count by more than 30%, from around 4,460 to 2,970.
Metro Bank had originally said it would be cutting around a fifth of its workforce, but made additional reductions after raising its cost-saving target.
The bank said it made an underlying pre-tax profit of £12.8 million for the six months to the end of December – a return to profitability after a £26.8 million loss the year before.
The underlying figure strips out what it views as one-off costs from things such as the sale of assets and refinancing.
On a statutory basis, it made a pre-tax loss of £212 million for 2024.
Metro Bank secured a funding package worth £925 million in 2023, helping secure its future on British high streets.
Colombian billionaire Jaime Gilinski Bacal became a majority shareholder in the group after contributing through his firm Spaldy Investments.
The bank sold a portion of its residential mortgages, worth £2.5 billion, to NatWest last year, as part of efforts to move towards specialist mortgages and business lending.
On Wednesday, it said it had agreed the sale of a £584 million portfolio of personal loans to an undisclosed buyer.
Metro Bank said there had been some deterioration in lending balances due to borrowers being impacted by “the macroeconomic environment including lower house prices, increased cost of living and higher interest rates”.
The overall level of loans in arrears increased to 5.6% at the end of 2024, up from 2.8% in 2023.
Daniel Frumkin, Metro Bank’s chief executive, said: “It has been a transformational year for Metro Bank as we made substantial progress against our strategy, ending the period ahead of guidance, profitable, and with strong momentum going forward.
“We have successfully continued our pivot towards higher margin business in the form of corporate, commercial and SME lending and specialist mortgages, while also taking significant steps to reduce our costs and optimising our funding model.”
