After just two years at JPMorgan, Penny back at Westpac

afr.com:

In perhaps the shortest stint as a senior investment banker, Adam Penny is leaving JPMorgan to return to Westpac. He only left Australia’s fourth-largest bank, where he was head of M&A, in April 2021.

Penny led JPMorgan’s financial institutions group coverage. When he arrived to take over from Anthony Brasher, who had quit JPMorgan for Barrenjoey Capital some six months earlier, the investment bank told staff that Penny would focus on “further building our franchise and leadership”.

But that was not to be. Penny is now back at Westpac, leaving some market pundits scratching their head over why he got called back after presiding over some less-than-perfect divestments.

Adam Penny is returning to Westpac. Natalie Boog

The long-running sale of its life insurance business, which concluded last year with the purchase of the division by TAL Dai-ichi Life Australia, triggered a $1.1 billion loss. Westpac called in JPMorgan to work on the divestment back in September 2019.

There was also the mooted sale of Westpac’s Pacific banking operations to ASX-listed Kina Securities, which collapsed after the competition regulator in Papua New Guinea knocked over the proposal. Kina owns PNG’s second-largest retail bank. Two months later, Westpac called off the divestment.

As first revealed by The Australian Financial Review earlier this month, Westpac has overhauled its management, with consumer and business banking boss Chris de Bruin resigning, institutional boss Anthony Miller will take over the business banking portfolio, while former Goldman Sachs partner Nell Hutton will take over the institutional bank.