Anne Boden’s exit at a reported £1.7bn resets Starling’s price

Anne Boden, who founded Starling in 2014 and ran it as chief executive until 2023, has sold her remaining 2.7% stake in the London-based digital bank. The Sunday Times reported the sale on 18 October, and on 20 October Sky News reported that the shares changed hands at a valuation of £1.7bn. A Starling spokesperson told City AM: “Our founder has sold her remaining shares in Starling privately to several existing shareholders.”

The buyers, according to The Sunday Times as cited by Sky News, include Harald McPike, Starling’s largest investor. Boden told Sky News she was unable to comment and Starling declined to comment.

In September 2025 City AM, citing the Financial Times, reported that Starling was in talks with Morgan Stanley and Rothschild to run a secondary share sale at a valuation of £3.5bn to £4bn, letting existing shareholders reduce their stakes and bringing in new investors. A trade at £1.7bn is less than half the top of that range.

Boden’s exit shows where Starling’s price is now set: in private trades between people who already own it, rather than in a sale process run by advisers or on an exchange. Starling has no listing date, and Sky News reports little sign that it plans to float soon. Until it does, the last trade between shareholders is the most recent reference point for what its shares are worth.

A profitable bank at under eight times profit

The valuation does not follow losses. Starling reported pre-tax profit of £217.1m for the year to 31 March 2026, down from £223.4m and its fifth consecutive profitable year. Group revenue fell 5.6% to £887.4m as lower interest rates cut interest income. Customer deposits rose to £12.7bn and platform accounts to 6.2 million, and the bank says 56% of its small and medium-sized business customers use it as their primary bank account.

“We have delivered a fifth consecutive year of profitability while continuing to invest in the business,” Raman Bhatia, group chief executive, said with the results in May.

At £1.7bn, Starling is valued at less than eight times that profit. The £4bn top of the 2025 range was about 18 times the £223.4m pre-tax profit the bank had reported for the year before. On those figures, the reported price implies a multiple less than half the one Starling sought 13 months earlier.

The marks were already falling

The private trade follows public write-downs. Chrysalis Investments, the listed fund that holds more than 10% of Starling according to filings analyzed by City AM in February, cut the carrying value of its Starling stake in consecutive quarters to 30 June 2026. City AM reported in August that Chrysalis valued the holding at £356m at the end of June, a 5% cut after an earlier 14% reduction, and that it put the write-down mainly down to lower valuation multiples among high-growth fintech peers.

Boden had also been selling for some time. City AM reported in February that filings showed her holding had fallen from 4.3% to about 2.7% through the secondary process the bank launched in 2025. The sale reported in October disposes of the rest.

McPike was already the dominant shareholder before this trade, with a stake City AM put at more than 40% in February. Buying part of Boden’s holding adds to that position without any new investor having to agree a price.

Who sets the price now

The buyers were existing shareholders, who have followed the bank’s results and plans for longer than any outside bidder. When they pay £1.7bn, the figure carries more information than an asking range set at the start of a sale process.

Starling invested £19.7m in Engine, the software unit that sells its banking platform to other banks, in the year to 31 March 2026. Engine’s revenue grew 25% in the last financial year, its client base doubled to four, including Tangerine, its first North American client, and Starling says it has £70m of committed annual recurring revenue. Engine’s revenue was £10.9m, according to Tech.eu, against group revenue of £887.4m. At under eight times group profit, the reported price values Starling on the earnings of a lender whose income moves with interest rates, not on Engine’s growth.

For founders, finance chiefs and investors holding equity in other late-stage fintechs, Starling is now a visible data point: a profitable, deposit-funded bank with 6.2 million accounts, priced by its own shareholders at £1.7bn. Any future sale process or listing is likely to be measured against the price at which its founder sold her last shares.