Key Standard Bank player quits
STANDARD Bank’s board has put itself into a “psychological straitjacket” as it loses key staff, according to First Avenue Asset Management’s chief investment officer Hlelo Giyose.
His comment came after Africa’s biggest bank in terms of assets announced the departure of chief operating officer Peter Wharton-Hood to Deutsche Bank, where he will be CEO.
Wharton-Hood’s departure had seemed inevitable for some time. For five years, he was one of a troika of deputy CEOs at the bank, alongside Sim Tshabalala and Ben Kruger. In March, however, Tshabalala and Kruger were appointed as Jacko Maree’s joint successors, leaving Wharton-Hood alone as deputy, having to report to Kruger.
Sanlam Investment Management global head Kokkie Kooyman said it was a natural step for Wharton-Hood to leave.
Wharton-Hood will now replace Herman Bosman as Deutsche Bank’s chief country officer for South Africa from next month — a move that Kooyman rates as a coup for the German bank.
Though Standard Bank played down Wharton-Hood’s departure — Kruger said this week that WhartonHood “will be an important client of ours” in his new role — this raises concern about the loss of a crucial pillar of the bank’s management.
He had been with Standard Bank for 16 years and was regarded as a “minister of whatever portfolio that needs to be turned around”, according to Kooyman.
If an asset needed to be set back on its feet and then sold, WhartonHood was the man to do this.
First Avenue’s Giyose, himself a former Standard Bank employee, said the fact that Wharton-Hood left for a CEO position suggested that Standard Bank “suffers from decision paralysis”.
In a rather scathing assessment, Giyose said he was not certain “when Standard Bank stopped being a wonderful bank”, but it seemed to be run by “compromised decisions” between the two joint CEOs, Tshabalala and Kruger.
However, Standard Bank has recently lost a number of other key bankers to its rivals, as it winds down some operations outside Africa.
Craig Bond, who was with Standard Bank for 12 years, has left to join Absa. Bond played a critical role in negotiations that led to the Industrial & Commercial Bank of China buying 20% of Standard Bank in 2008.
Bond joins Kennedy Bungane, who ditched Standard Bank to become Absa’s head of strategy in Africa. They both understand Standard Bank’s Africa expansion strategy — knowledge that will prove vital for Absa and its parent, Barclays Africa.
Rob Leith, Standard Bank’s former global head of investment banking, has gone to Troika Dialog.
Giyose said the bank could not afford to lose so many skilled individuals, especially when it was lamenting how tough the banking environment was.
But at the same time Standard Bank has been promoting a number of other skilled people internally. Last year, Peter Schlebusch was promoted to the group’s head of personal and business banking for the group. The former head of credit at the South African operations, Funeka Montjane, is in his post.
The bank has stolen Sydney Soundy from Absa to head up the group’s vehicle and asset finance unit.