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ANZ rural head Charlie Graham to leave as management shake-up puts focus on four regions

Rural News
ANZ rural head Charlie Graham to leave as management shake-up puts focus on four regions

By Bernard Hickey

New Zealand's largest banking group, ANZ New Zealand, has announced a management restructure to pull together its commercial and rural divisions into one operation, and create four new regional divisions that cover both the ANZ and National branches owned by the group.

ANZ NZ CEO David Hisco told a news conference the restructure would mean around 15 management roles would go and up to 30 back office roles would go.

One of those to leave is the former head of National Bank's Rural division, Charlie Graham. The Commercial and Rural divisions of ANZ and National Bank will merge into a single division called Commercial & Agri led by Graham Turley, who is currently Managing Director Commercial.

"This isn't a cost cutting exercise because this is less than half of one percent of our 9,000 staff in New Zealand. This is about getting our business set up for what we think is going to be a turn in the economy," Hisco said.

Customers would continue to have the same relationship manager or front line staff, regardless of whether that was with National Bank or ANZ, he said.

The combination of the bank's rural division with its commercial operation would help customers better connect with ANZ's regional strategy of working with Australian and New Zealand businesses as they expanded into Asia.

"We see a real opportunity in the Agri sector in Asia and India. In India there are 20 million people a year moving from one to two meals a day and they want more protein. There's less arable land and more population coming on so New Zealand is in the prime position to benefit from that over the next 20 to 30 years," Hisco said.

"This is about setting us up so we can be a key player in that Agri sector and how it grows and goes outside New Zealand," he said.

ANZ acknowledged the move was also aimed at catering for many farms as they got bigger and more sophisticated as they transitioned from small family farms to larger corporates.

The four regions being created are Southern, Central, Northern and Auckland.

“To support growth prospects for agriculture, we need to continue to improve our support by broadening our view of farms, suppliers and processors. This includes extending the specialised support we provide through ANZ and National Bank relationship managers and through broadening the range of financial products and services we offer customers," Hisco said.

“At the same time, we’re also demonstrating that ANZ’s super regional strategy and our network of around 100 branches in 14 Asian markets can play an important role in unlocking new opportunities for our customers whether they are dairy farmers, fishermen, wine makers or large agri-processing businesses."

Detail of changes

As part of the planned management changes:

- In Retail, Kerri Thompson will continue as Managing Director Retail with responsibility for all of ANZ New Zealand’s ANZ and National Bank branches.

In addition, following the retirement of Deputy Chief Executive Steven Fyfe, Ms Thompson will also have responsibility for Marketing.

- A senior executive from the ANZ New Zealand leadership team will each have special responsibility for developing a coordinated approach in each region. The new regional champions are Graham Turley (Southern); Kerri Thompson (Central); John Body, Managing Director Wealth (Northern) and Fred Ohlsson, Managing Director, Business Banking (Auckland.)

Hisco said customers wanted to work with one bank.Patchy economic confidence

Turley said confidence among customers in the economic outlook was patchy.

Demand for loans for plant and equipment from ANZ's UDC had picked up late last year, but had dropped off again in recent months.

"People are not spending the money. There are a lot of anxious people out there," Turley told the news conference.

Hisco also cautioned about the risk of New Zealand tradespeople going to Queensland to help repair flood damage when work remained to be done repairing earthquake damage in Christchurch.

ANZ said expected the new management structure will be in place by the end of March this year.

(Updated with detail from news conference, Videos detailing rural banking changes, the approach to National bank and the outlook for the economy)

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21 Comments

 “ANZ New Zealand through its ANZ and National Bank brands is already the leading banker to the sector, supporting it with more than NZ$17 billion in lending."........or to put it another way...........

".....crippling it with more than NZ$17 billion in debts"!

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May be the guys who have managed "intensive care" have had their day and the damage they have done is now being addressed. Hopefully these changes will create a better system and style of management and a more ethical type of behaviour. Interesting they want to develop stronger local relationships when so many farmers have had their local agri business manager removed. Wait and see.

I wonder if Charlie Graham has had to have " a courageous talk" bank speak for you need to assess your future going forward as many farmers have had to do.

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ctnz, I don't underestimate the spin just be interesting how they will or even if they will change their modus operandi. Read in Dom Post today James Weirs take on a further recession to come shortly.

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Yep another aussie bank out to rip us kiwis off under the pretense of better service. Time for us to take charge and move to the kiwi owned bank.

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Don't talk to me about bloody banks, matie.

One of my term deposits matured today.

The deposit was $100,000 and the term was 150 days.

Interest rate was 5.1%

On maturity the gross interest was $2,095.89.

RWT was $366.78.

Final interest paid totaled $1,729.11.

Once all the others mature they probably won't be reinvested in TDs!

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WTF! How the hell was the gross just over 2 thou? You NEED to name & shame them right now!

That is criminal!

RWT, what's Key and English doing about that? You barely hear a thucking mention.

Man, that sucks. 

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John Key and Bill English would claim this bank has the best name. ;)

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Oh jezz, just name them! They can't sue you if it's factually correct what you have told us

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$2095.89 is right.   $100000 @ 5.1% per annum = $5100 over 365 days or  $13.9726 per day, multiplied by 150 days = $2095.89

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FM, if you go down a few comments you will see I eventually realised my mistake

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Sorry Landmark not sure what your point is here?

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Pity there are no longer any finance companies about to take your hard earned cash, pay some rate over the Bank and then lose it on some specutive property deal offshore. When was the last time someone in New Zealand lost their capital or didn't get paid their interest on due date from a New Zealand Registered Bank? Its all about risk and return.

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Will we ever see a government that puts its money where its mouth is and creates genuine incentives for people to save?

Not bloody likely!

 

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So the bank came through with their 5.1%, but the yield was hammered by RWT right? Isn't that the governments fault as apposed to the banks?

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VC, 100,000 * 5.1% =?

 

Opps, sorry missed the 150 day period

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$100,000 x 5.1% = $5,100 annual return.

$100,000 x 5.1% on 150 day TD only $2095 (not allowing for any compounding.

Take off the RWT of $366.78 = annualised net return of $4205 or 4.2%.

 

Point being its not the bank that needs shamed here, they advertised 5.1% and paid 5.1%, the difference went to the government, not secretly pocketed by the bank.

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Right on VC. Goverment wants us to save so the tax us on the interest that we earn and yet give incentives to investment in property by way of tax write offs and no capital gains tax.

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Maybe the idea going around in some circles that tax on savings only applied to returns in excessive of CPI. Then savers are at least retaining the purchasing power of their money and only taxed on true returns (after allowance for inflation).

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Landmark Corporation, can you please tell us what you will invest in now that you've just figured out there is such a thing as resident withholding tax?

Where did you have all of your savings in the first place, or are you just another old guy who sold the family farm?

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Don't wanna pay tax;

Bonus Bonds prizes are tax-paid

Under current New Zealand taxation law and practice, you do not have to pay income tax on prizes received in respect of your Bonus Bonds where these prizes are paid out of the assets of the Bonus Bonds Trust. You do not need to declare such prize winnings in your tax returns. 

 

And it's fun!!!!!

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Don't wanna pay tax;

Bonus Bonds prizes are tax-paid.

Under current New Zealand taxation law and practice, you do not have to pay income tax on prizes received in respect of your Bonus Bonds where these prizes are paid out of the assets of the Bonus Bonds Trust. You do not need to declare such prize winnings in your tax returns. 

And it's fun!!!!!

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