Margin Call: Hodge tears strips off AMP at inquiry after time called on CEO

AMP chief executive Craig Meller and chairman Catherine Brenner. (John Feder/The Australian)

Three weeks before “fifth pillar” AMP was razed in Kenneth Hayne’s Royal Commission, the stumbling wealth giant revealed its CEO Craig Meller would be out the door by December. Coincidence?

It has been another shocker today in Melbourne’s Federal Court for the Catherine Brenner-chaired wealth Leviathan.

So far, Meller’s hapless direct report Jack “Sweeney” Regan has confessed to AMP’s systematic misleading of the corporate watchdog ASIC. Regan also admitted that AMP has ripped off tens of thousands of its customers.

Margin Call: Michael Hodge

As counsel assisting the commission Michael Hodge grilled Regan, stock in the $13.4 billion and shrinking Leviathan (AMP) tumbled almost 4 per cent to shed more than $500 million of value.

Going in the other direction is the Brisbane-based Hodge’s daily fee. The baby-faced commercial barrister was only made a Queen’s Counsel last year, but clearly when this young man talks, the market listens.

The revelations in the Hayne Show about the extent of AMP’s “fee for no service” rort would not have been a surprise to the 47-year-old Brenner and her board, which includes Woolworths director Holly Kramer and former DFAT secretary Peter Varghese.

AMP’s Royal Commission legal team would have thoroughly briefed Brenner and her board about the extent of their shop’s dirty laundry.

In fact, that legal briefing was likely delivered to Brenner weeks before the March 26 announcement that called time on the Meller era and revealed the chairman was leading a search for a new CEO.

What an interesting confluence of events.

Read the full Margin Call column tomorrow in print and online.