It’s a hangover, National Australia Bank chairman Phil Chronican tells Chanticleer with a grin,. McEwan bought a more salubrious vehicle soon after arriving in London in 2013, only to see it pinched off the street. When the same thing happened to the replacement, McEwan decided enough was enough and bought a beaten-up old car that thieves would ignore.
McEwan officially steps down on April 2, but the Easter break means he’ll wave goodbye to NAB on Thursday.McEwan’s 11-year stint as a bank CEO, first at RBS, then at NAB, is essentially the story of stripping two struggling banks back to their core after years of misguided and ultimately unprofitable additions. The simple strategy of getting back to basics for customers and staff was about learning how to be less Ferrari and more Holden.
Given Australian investors have rightly been focused on the travails of their own banks, the mess that McEwan found at RBS is probably under-appreciated. The bank collapsed during the GFC and had to be recapitalised by the British government. When McEwan arrived, it had lost money for five years straight.
When he arrived at NAB in late 2019, McEwan found a different problem – a bank making good money, but with staff morale crushed by the battering NAB had taken during the Hayne royal commission, which infamously culminated with the departures of chairman Ken Henry and CEO Andrew Thorburn. There’s nothing fancy here, but delivering consistent growth, without the stuff-ups NAB had become known for has been rewarded by the market. NAB shares are 26 per cent higher today than on McEwan’s first day in the office.