Morning Briefing: ANZ Bank appoints new CFO

ANZ Bank appoints Greenhill’s Michelle Jablko as finance chief... Auction market turns in strong results...

ANZ Bank appoints Greenhill’s Michelle Jablko as finance chief
(Bloomberg) -- Australia & New Zealand Banking Group Ltd. named Michelle Jablko as its chief financial officer, completing Chief Executive Officer Shayne Elliott’s leadership team as he focuses on shrinking the lender’s Asian business to improve returns.

Jablko, 43, will join July 18 from investment bank Greenhill & Co., where she has been co-head of Australia since 2014, Melbourne-based ANZ said in a regulatory filing on Monday. Her appointment concludes a seven-month search that began after Elliott, the previous CFO, was named to succeed Mike Smith as CEO.

ANZ is beginning to pull back from lower-yielding Asian assets after setting out to be a regional lender under Smith. The Asian strategy, while adding revenue and assets, has dragged on return on equity, and Elliott said this month he plans to reduce capital allocated to the institutional and international-banking unit as part of a plan to reshape the lender. ANZ has already cut its institutional banking risk-weighted assets by 7 percent in the year to March 31, filings show.

Jablko will have responsibility for all aspects of finance as well as treasury, mergers and acquisitions, and investor relations, and will also be a member of the lender’s group executive committee, ANZ said. The Monash University graduate was at UBS Group AG before the role for New York-based Greenhill, and advised companies on M&A and capital raising at both firms, the bank said.

Auction market turns in strong results
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Strong results across Sydney, Melbourne and Adelaide last week look to have given the national auction clearance rate a slight bump.

Preliminary figures from CoreLogic RP Data put last week’s national clearance rate at 70% from 1,863 auctions, up slightly from the previous week’s 69.5% from 1,876 auctions.

The corresponding week 12 months ago saw the national clearance rate hit 79.1% from 2,599 auctions.

Despite a slight week-on-week fall, Sydney was home to the strongest result last week with its preliminary clearance rate at 74.2% from 700 auctions last week.

The previous week saw Sydney’s clearance rate come in at 76.2% from 647 auctions.