Originally posted by corp01
There is a chance APRA will loose the battle in court and lets hops so. The unfortunate thing for shareholders is that this is going to take a long time to resolve itself.
That said, I think it is appalling that APRA and the royal commission have lost focus on the need to balance the interests of all stakeholders (ie consumers and shareholders). There is a very fine balance here. The way regulation is heading no one will invest in financial stocks and there will be a total lack of investment in this industry which is critical for ensuring Australia's economic performance. I also think that APRA is totally ignorant of commercial issues. Companies running super funds need to have representatives of the boards of the super funds otherwise you may end up with the super funds doing things which are not in the interests of firms whose business is to run super funds. I also hate to think what is going to happen when APRA forces companies like IOOF and the banks to hold extremely large amounts of capital which has the effect of lowering returns.
In my view the current board and senior management must be replaced ASAP regardless of whether there is a prospect that they might beat the APRA charges. IFL needs to have a good relationship with the regulator and that will not happen with the current senior management. It seems the only chance of avoiding a massive outflow of FUM and to the ANZ transaction going forward is if the people in charge at IFL are changed to people who have squeaky clean reputations in the trust industry.
The current board and senior management must see that regardless of how they personally feel about APRA action, it is in the shareholders interests for them to move on. It is inconceivable that the current leadership can remain in place fighting the APRA charges claiming they are misconceived and at the same time purport to be changing the culture and mistakes of the past.
For the good of the company, they should act expeditiously to facilitate a leadership change.
(20min delay)
