A lever banks won’t laugh at

by Michael West | Oct 23, 2010 | Business

THERE is one lever, and a very fine lever it is, which the government could pull to stop the banks hoisting interest rates beyond the Reserve Bank settings.

It is certainly not the lever Joe Hockey was advocating this week, the legislation lever.

That was more of a leg than a lever that Joe was pulling. No, rather than dragging Parliament in to regulate prices, there are only two words which Julia Gillard need utter to bring the banks to heel, ”Australia” and ”Post”.

The play for Gillard is simple: have Ralph Norris, Mike Smith, Gail Kelly and Cameron Clyne in for tea. Tell the big four bank chiefs that a spanking new banking licence will be issued to Australia Post (with its sovereign credit rating and 3800 branches across the land) if they have the temerity to raise rates by even one fraction of a basis point in excess of the RBA. They will comply.

Perhaps there could also be a ”hardship” provision attached. Should the big four’s collective bottom line profits tumble from $20 billion to $5 billion – and the big four CEO salary clip collectively, and tragically, plunge from $50 million to a miserly $10 million – the AusPost lever could be reversed.

THE big four have a little secret. That is, they are making a killing rolling over their foreign funding lines as the $A goes through the roof. Roughly one-third of the banks’ funding needs are sourced offshore in three and five year notes. And the $A has rallied from US65¢ over the past couple of years, so when it comes to rolling at US98¢, it’s a lot cheaper than US68¢ or US88¢.

Customers would be lucky to find that pricing differential turn up in their bank statements.

Back to the point, though. Were the government to summon a real reformist courage it would forget these levers all together, select a credible board and management and turn AusPost into a financial services leviathan to deliver proper competition to the banks.

We are not just talking mortgages here but, more critically, the provision of decently priced loans to small business.

Don’t hold your breath.

If the big miners can see off an Australian prime minister with just $7 million worth of advertising, and a PR campaign against a tax, there is little hope the government can stand up to the lobbying might of the banks.

IT WAS a huge week for deals, what with KKR, Tabcorp and Ten. And it was further evidence, as if any more were needed, of the sheer pointlessness of investment banking.

Tabcorp announced a demerger, a plan to split its racing business from its casinos. It was only a few years ago we were being told of the need to expand into casinos to diversify earnings and achieve synergies. Good old synergies.

Now we are back to ”unlocking value” via a demerger. Same bankers, UBS, different spiel.

Vain and fruitless corporate expeditions are the rule rather than the exception in sharemarkets. Such is human ambition and the ill-discipline that arises from sitting on a pile of somebody else’s cash.

In this, Tabcorp by no means is alone. It follows a rich tradition of pointless and costly deals. Virtually the entire property trust sector, save the redoubtable Westfield, has blown its shareholders up in ill-feted ventures offshore. Now the fad is to exit funds management and get back into property development.

Elsewhere, expanding from beer into wine, Foster’s has squandered billions. Following a near-death experience, Sigma’s bold foray into manufacturing has been shelved for its original game plan, distribution.

The list goes on.

AMP and IAG in Britain, Amcor in Europe, National Australia Bank’s bewildering excursion to the US to acquire Homeside – nicknamed Homicide. Or rival ANZ’s ”ring a ring a rosy” strategy which took it into Asia, out of Asia, and into Asia again. The entire Macquarie satellite model – consummated with great flair by gouging unit holders for half a billion in fees ”otherwise we won’t go”.

Notable for the breakneck speed of its volte-face was Lihir. Its takeover of Ballarat struck for a price tag of $450 million was sold shortly thereafter for the princely sum of $4.5 million cash and the hope of a few royalties down the track.

THIS litany of foiled and failed mergers and acquisitions makes Wesfarmers’ performance over the years all the more commendable. The likes of Woolworths and Woodside, too.

A big cap portfolio starting with W would have been a wonderful thing. Companies with a sound strategy and with discipline. Mindful then that two out of three deals destroy shareholder value, what might this week’s deluge presage?

KKR’s bid for Perpetual has a touch of Qantas about it – that piquant aroma, that is, of a private equity deal prone to benefit top staff and the predator above long-term shareholders and customers. It’s no sure thing but if the privateers get the nod from the directors and the NSW government, they will rip the cash out, gear it to the hilt, sack as many people as possible and quite possibly mutilate the brand. Shareholders would be better off with sharp new management instead of a quick gain now before it was floated back at them in three years time corporately embalmed with too much lipstick.

Ross Gittins is on leave.

Michael West established Michael West Media in 2016 to focus on journalism of high public interest, particularly the rising power of corporations over democracy. West was formerly a journalist and editor with Fairfax newspapers, a columnist for News Corp and even, once, a stockbroker.

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