Top Mac banker pulling the pin
Macquarie Group said its star performer and Australia’s highest paid banking executive, Nicholas O’Kane, will step down this month as executive director “to pursue opportunities outside Macquarie”.
After 28 years with the company, including heading the commodities and global markets division since 2019, Mr O’Kane will depart on February 27. Simon Wright, head of the financial markets division, will be named group head of the unit to replace him. Mr Wright, who has been at the company 35 years, will join the executive committee from April 1.
In a business update for the three months ended December 31, the banking giant also said an “exceptional” third quarter would not do much to improve a financial year result that would be “substantially down” from its record $5.2bn profit in 2023.
Macquarie, valued at $72bn, has four main operations: global asset management, trading and investment banking businesses and a local retail and commercial banking unit.
The update on Tuesday said it had lower asset sales and had seen thinner margins than a year earlier, despite strong growth in its lending business.
The profit contribution of the unit Mr O’Kane heads during the year to date had been “substantially down” on the previous corresponding period, while lower fees and commissions at its investment bank, Macquarie Capital, had only been partially offset by investment-related gains.
The previous year, the Russian war in Ukraine had triggered market volatility in oil and gas markets that delivered a boon for the unit headed by Mr O’Kane, the biggest contributor to last year’s $5.18bn full-year record profit.
Mr O’Kane’s $57.6m remuneration package then made him the highest-paid executive in the entire Australian banking industry, overtaking Macquarie’s Shemara Wikramanayake with $32.8m.