07/28/2015

Citizens Financial Group Announces Secondary Common Stock Offering by RBS Group

PROVIDENCE, R.I.--(BUSINESS WIRE)-- Citizens Financial Group, Inc. (NYSE: CFG) today announced that The Royal Bank of Scotland Group plc (“RBS”), through a subsidiary, has launched an underwritten public offering to sell Citizens Financial Group, Inc. common stock (the “Offering”). CFG will not be issuing or selling common stock, and will not receive any proceeds from the Offering.

RBS plans to sell 75 million CFG shares in the Offering. In addition, RBS will grant the underwriters an overallotment option to purchase up to an additional 11.25 million CFG shares.

Completion of the Offering, assuming no exercise of the overallotment option, is expected to reduce RBS’s ownership stake in CFG common stock from 219 million shares, or 40.8%, to 144 million shares, or 26.8% of CFG’s issued and outstanding common stock. If the overallotment option is exercised in full, RBS’s remaining stake would be 132.7 million shares, or 24.7% of CFG’s issued and outstanding common stock.

Additionally, CFG announced that it has agreed to purchase approximately $250 million of its common stock at the Offering price from RBS in early August.

The Offering is being led by global coordinators and joint book-running managers Morgan Stanley and Goldman, Sachs & Co. and joint book runners J.P. Morgan and Citigroup.

The prospectus relating to the offering may be obtained from: Morgan Stanley, 180 Varick Street, 2nd Floor, New York, NY 10014, Attention: Prospectus Department; Goldman Sachs & Co., Attention: Prospectus Department, 200 West Street, New York, New York 10282, via telephone: 1-866-471-2526 or via email: [email protected]; J.P. Morgan Securities LLC, Attention: Prospectus Department, 1155 Long Island Avenue, Edgewood, NY 11717, via telephone: 866-803-9204; and Citigroup, c/o Broadridge Financial Solutions, 1155 Long Island Avenue, Edgewood, NY 11717, via telephone: 800-831-9146.

The registration statement relating to these securities has been filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission, but has not yet become effective. These securities may not be sold nor may offers to buy be accepted prior to the time the registration statement becomes effective.

This press release shall not constitute an offer to sell or the solicitation of an offer to buy, nor shall there be any sale of these securities in any jurisdiction in which such offer, solicitation or sale would be unlawful prior to registration or qualification under the securities laws of any such jurisdiction.

About Citizens Financial Group, Inc.

Citizens Financial Group, Inc. is one of the nation’s oldest and largest financial institutions, with $137.3 billion in assets as of June 30, 2015. Headquartered in Providence, Rhode Island, Citizens offers a broad range of retail and commercial banking products and services to individuals, small businesses, middle‐market companies, large corporations and institutions. In Consumer Banking, Citizens helps its retail customers “bank better” with mobile and online banking, a 24/7 customer contact center and the convenience of approximately 3,200 ATMs and approximately 1,200 Citizens Bank branches in 11 states in the New England, Mid‐Atlantic and Midwest regions. Citizens also provides mortgage lending, auto lending, student lending and commercial banking services in select markets nationwide. In Commercial Banking, Citizens offers corporate, institutional and not‐for‐profit clients a full range of wholesale banking products and services including lending and deposits, capital markets, treasury services, foreign exchange and interest hedging, leasing and asset finance, specialty finance and trade finance. Citizens operates through its subsidiaries Citizens Bank, N.A., and Citizens Bank of Pennsylvania. Additional information about Citizens and its full line of products and services can be found at www.citizensbank.com.

Cautionary Statement About Forward-Looking Statements

This news release contains forward-looking statements within the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Any statement that does not describe historical or current facts is a forward-looking statement. These statements often include the words “believes,” “expects,” “anticipates,” “estimates,” “intends,” “plans,” “goals,” “targets,” “initiatives,” “potentially,” “probably,” “projects,” “outlook” or similar expressions or future or conditional verbs such as “may,” “will,” “should,” “would,” and “could.”

Forward-looking statements are based upon the current beliefs and expectations of management, and on information currently available to management. Our statements speak as of the date hereof, and we do not assume any obligation to update these statements or to update the reasons why actual results could differ from those contained in such statements in light of new information or future events. We caution you, therefore, against relying on any of these forward-looking statements. They are neither statements of historical fact nor guarantees or assurances of future performance.

More information about factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from those described in the forward-looking statements can be found under “Risk Factors” in our Annual Report on Form 10-K filed with the United States Securities and Exchange Commission on March 3, 2015.

CFG-IR

Citizens Financial Group, Inc.
Media:
Jim Hughes, 781-751-5404
or
Investors:
Ellen Taylor, 203-900-6854

Source: Citizens Financial Group, Inc.