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Twelve-year management cycle for ANZ

10 September 2008 4:14PM
There's an echo of the later stages of the Don Mercer era in the latest organisational structure for ANZ announced yesterday.Back in the mid 1990s ANZ had an Australian regional chief (John Ries) and an international chief (Alistair Maitland). Admittedly, at the time institutional banking reported via Ries, while the New Zealand business reported to Maitland.Twelve years later ANZ is getting a similar organisational structure. Brian Hartzer will be chief executive of the Australian region. Alex Thursby will be chief executive of Asia Pacific. Graham Hodges will be chief executive of New Zealand. Institutional will be managed separately, though Alex Thursby will continue to fill in as head of this business group pending a search for someone else.One theme of this restructure is that the concept of specialist divisions that was prominent at ANZ between about 2000 and 2004 is now redundant. The bank had watered down this approach four years ago when it "clustered" the nominally specialist divisions into a conventional retail banking and corporate banking separation in Australia.One difference then was that no one formally held the title of chief executive for Australia, though Bob Edgar, who these days holds the job title of deputy managing director, might have had that as a proxy role.Another difference in 2008 might be that ANZ on this occasion has an explicit growth strategy in Asia and that group management must now, somehow, harmonise strategy, technology and operations across regions (at least in relation to retail banking and commercial banking).So banking and business practices that apply in mature, oligopoly markets in Australia, where ANZ owns banks outright, have to be made adaptable to minority investment and joint ventures in emerging and under-banked (but increasingly crowded) markets in China, Indonesia, Malaysia, Vietnam, and also India if ANZ can create the opportunity.Hartzer, who ran the personal "cluster" for ANZ over the last four years, will be "global segment leader for retail".David Hisco, who will keep his job as group managing director of commercial banking in Australia will be "global segment leader for commercial".Hisco, by the way, might be the ANZ executive who has most caught the eye of the bank's still newish managing director Mike Smith. (Hisco served with Smith on the committee that looked into the securities lending mess.)"Global", of course, means east Asia and the western Pacific, and maybe south Asia if ANZ can negotiate its way to a full banking licence in India.One more management change of note is that Margaret Payn, who steered the process over the last year leading to this reorganisation, scores the job of group managing director strategy and marketing.There's also talk, in ANZ's media release on the reorganisation, of an intention to establish a "global wealth management" segment. However, for the time being the Australian region will look after the bank's interest in the ING Australia joint venture and Asia Pacific will nurture a wealth management business in that region.One financial consequence is that the bank will pursue a consolidation of support functions, including technology.ANZ of

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