Ahmed Fahour’s $3.2bn Latitude Financial float called off

Ahmed Fahour’s potential $22.5m payday is gone after the ­listing of Latitude ­Financial was shelved.

Latitude CEO Ahmed Fahour. Picture: Andrew Henshaw

Former Australia Post boss Ahmed Fahour’s potential $22.5m payday has evaporated after the planned $3.2bn stockmarket ­listing of his consumer finance company Latitude ­Financial was shelved.

Mr Fahour, who stood down from Australia Post in 2017 amid outcry over his then $5.6m pay packet, later joined Latitude to steer the company to what would have been the biggest stockmarket float this year.

READ MORE: ‘Overpriced’ $3.2bn Latitude float flops again | A bridge too Fahour for lender

But investor nerves over the health of the retail market as well as doubts over the high price being asked by the private equity owners to list Latitude prompted the backers to pull the deal on Tuesday night, three days before Friday’s scheduled listing.

The decision marks the second time that Latitude, which was built out of the former GE Money ­business, has been pulled from a stockmarket float by its private ­equity owners.

It also leaves a question mark over Mr Fahour’s future with the business, given the high-profile executive had been recruited to oversee the sharemarket float.

Mr Fahour, who was also a former top National Australia Bank executive, stood to receive a major ­payday if the Latitude listing had moved ahead.

He was in line for a discretionary bonus on listing of up to $22.5m in Latitude shares on top of his pay, which had been targeted at $4.8m. This was to include base pay of $1.8m, a short-term bonus of the same amount and $1.2m in long-term bonuses.

Mr Fahour has been in line for a big payday in each venture he took on, from his transfer from Citibank to National Australia Bank early last decade, which included a huge sign-on bonus, to walking away from Australia Post with a $10.8m payout.

Latitude has a personal loan book totalling $1.6bn, with $700m in new loans in the past 12 months. This is claimed to be ahead of both ANZ and National Australia Bank.

Its market share has increased from 9 to 13 per cent.

While the stockmarket is ­holding up, Latitude was listing amid jitters around the retail market and consumer confidence, on which it relies.

Investor concerns were heightened on Tuesday after several profit downgrades were linked to weak consumer and business sentiment.

Updating investors at its annual meeting, furniture retailer Nick Scali said its monthly store traffic was as much as 15 per cent lower during the first three months of the financial year, hitting like-for-like sales by 8 per cent and prompting downgrades to its profit guidance.

One fund manager, who declined to be named, said he had given the Latitude float a wide berth given the company’s relatively high debt levels and renewed signs of consumer stress across other ASX stocks.