Australia’s largest bank was trading at $72.05 shortly before close on Monday afternoon, down 2.65 per cent for the day after the bank announced the demerger of its wealth and broking businesses under a new CFS Group banner.
CBA led the declines on the ASX200 yesterday, which was down 0.3 per cent overall. NAB was down less than 1 per cent, while Westpac shares declined by 0.37 per cent and ANZ were up slightly for the day.
Subject to approval from the CBA board, shareholders and regulators, CFS Group will be demerged next year.
The new entity will include Colonial First State, CFSGAM, Count Financial, Financial Wisdom and Aussie Home Loans.
The announcement confirms that the entirety of CBA’s wealth management business (with the exception of the salaried advice business Commonwealth Financial Planning) will be demerged.
The demerged CFS Group will also include CBA’s minority shareholdings in Countplus and Mortgage Choice.
The chairman of CFS Group will be former Suncorp chief executive John Mulcahy, who was announced as the chairman of CFSGAM on 19 April after the bank announced an IPO of CFSGAM that will no longer push through.
CFS Group is currently undergoing a search for a chief executive, alongside a number of CBA executive leadership team changes announced on Monday.
CBA chief risk officer David Cohen has been promoted to the new role of deputy chief executive to lead the demerger of CFS Group.
Nigel Williams, currently chief risk officer ANZ, will replace Mr Cohen as CBA group chief risk officer.
Separately, Pascal Boillat has been appointed group executive enterprise services and chief information officer; Sian Lewis has been appointed group executive human resources; Andrew Hinchliff has been named group executive institutional banking and markets; and Angus Sullivan will become group executive retail banking services (which will now include Bankwest).
Does anyone know what’s happening with Commsec? If it’s being retained, then what’s the bet that CBA Financial Planning’s new boilerplate strategy is put everyone into ETFs and SMSFs via a Commsec account.