(05 April 2013 – Australia) There will be no change to ANZ’s Asian growth strategy, despite the departure of Chief Executive of Institutional and International Banking, Alex Thursby.ANZ Chief Executive Mike Smith admitted Thursby’s move was “a little bit unexpected” and might have caused problems if it were a few years earlier.
But he said the bank’s plan to extract a growing share of profits in Asia was unchanged, the bank still aiming for 25 percent to 30 percent of its income from the Asia-Pacific region, Europe and America by 2017.
Thursby will resign this month to become Head of National Bank of Abu Dhabi, the second-largest bank in the United Arab Emirates.
Meanwhile Smith said he expected to stay on as Chief Executive for the next two to three years, using the time to truly embed the super-regional culture into the organisation and at the appropriate time, he said he would hang up his boots.