The AMP has turned to a business ‘cleanskin’ Simon McKeon to be its new chairman, replacing eight year veteran, Peter Mason.
The company announced yesterday that Mr Mason will retire after the AGM in May, completing 10 years on the board with the last eight as chairman, in which he helped select and then transition two CEOs (Craig Dunn and Craig Mellor).
Former Macquarie Group executive Simon McKeon becomes new chairman after only joining the board last year.
He is a member of the Audit Committee and a Director of AMP Capital Holdings Limited. He is also the Chairman of CSIRO and holds a number of not-for-profit directorships.
Previously he was at Macquarie Bank where he became executive chairmen of the bank’s Melbourne Office. He was also head of the takeovers panel from 1999 to 2010 and was also the Chairman of software specialist MYOB from 2006 to 2009.
He was Australian Of The Year in 2011 and is a notable philanthropist.
Mr Mason, recently outlined plans to retire as chairman of retailer David Jones, where he had difficulty arranging a succession of CEOs, resulting in Paul Zahara staying.
His exit from David Jones followed pressure from disgruntled shareholders in the wake of a spurned merger proposal from Myer and accusations of inappropriate share trading among two of the retailer’s directors.
AMP 1Y – AMP gets a new chairman
As well as the exit of Mr Mason, AMP director Rick Allert will also retire at the upcoming annual meeting having reached the end of his three-year term. Mr Allert was former chairman of Axa.
The retirement of the two largely ends the involvement of key players in AMP’s $4 billion-plus acquisition of Axa Asia Ltd.
In the retirement of Mr Mason, and the earlier departure of the CEO, two people most involved in the AMP’s most troublesome business – its wealth protection division, have gone. Wealth protection has lost over $150 million in the past 18 months because of rising claims, lapsed policies and rising unemployment.
These three factors collided with poorly priced products which combined to produce rising losses which surprised the AMP and senior management.
It hurt the company’s results in 2012 and 2013, and will probably hurt this year’s figures and possibly 2015’s (but hopefully to a much smaller degree than in 2013).
While Mr McKeon’s appointment is of considerable interest, perhaps the surprise part of the announcement was the news that Trevor Matthews will join the AMP Limited Board as a non-executive director, from March 3. He is perhaps Australia’s most experienced insurance businessman, having worked here, in the UK and Canada.
Mr Matthews was forced out of his role as CEO of the UK arm of Aviva in February 2013, despite being hired only a year earlier. There was controversy over a 2 million pound ‘golden hullo’ paid to him to join Aviva. News reports said he was "restructured" out of a job.
The AMP’s shares fell 2.2% to $4.72 in yesterday’s jittery market. Events in The Ukraine proved to be more of a concern though.
