NAB executive’s world turns to jelly; Fahour’s low-key departure

Natasha Stipanov and Ann Peacock.

It seemed like a sudden exit for 12-year NAB veteran Drew Bradford, who announced on Monday he’d quit as executive general manager of markets.

NAB staff were told Bradford would be leaving the bank in short order, after more than a decade at the top of the markets team, with plans to move into the realm of Web3 – an imagined new iteration of the world wide web.

The former Deutsche Bank exec was heralded by NAB institutional head David Gall in an email to staff, but no replacement is waiting in the wings despite that the exit was not a surprise to some in the bank, NAB sales and research general manager John Bennett will take over while a replacement is found.

But where to next for Bradford? Our sources say he may make a return to digital technology investment house JellyC, co-founded by former Deutsche colleague Ashley Cooper.

NAB’s Drew Bradford is departing.

Bradford doesn’t hold equity in JellyC, which only boasts $2 in share capital held by co-founder Michael “Critta” Prendiville, but the investment house did mint an NFT of the exiting NAB markets boss featuring prison house-style tattoos.

When The Australian started asking questions some months ago about Bradford’s role in the investment house his presence was quickly scrubbed from the website.

We were told it was all OK but the diligence in deleting the banker’s online presence impressed even us, with nary a trace of Bradford and JellyC to be found on social media or otherwise.

This all comes at a rather difficult time for NAB, with a court case alleging sexual harassment and misconduct in the markets team still dragging, while the entire division is subject to a cultural review in the wake of revelations that management were cooking staff responses in surveys.

Bankers lockdown

Even members of Australia’s banking community were confused by the AFR’s attempt to shield them from pesky activists planning to attend the newspaper’s banking summit in Sydney on Tuesday.

Several ticket holders found themselves persona non grata at the lofty talkfest, despite that members of the moneyed profession noted to Margin Call that the occasional curly question or demand for bankers to stop funding coal or gas had been a tradition of such events in recent years.

Save being confronted by some opinionated teenager in hemp, the AFR headed off its critics, cancelling the tickets of five would-be questioners, in a move a rep of the esteemed rag told us was to ensure attendees were “safe” and proceedings were not “derailed”.

Still, organisers had plenty on their hands, with protesters assembled out front in an attempt to interrupt the lunch break. Such obstruction was thwarted by delays, which left attendees watching a prerecorded interview with Block CFO Amrita Ahuja, who thankfully avoided facing questions raised by the bombshell report from short sellers Hindenburg.

But all was well, this column was told, with the AFR extending the olive branch of a virtual attendance option for some of its critics.

What they didn’t tell us was this olive branch was extended only to those who responded to the AFR’s email informing them their tickets had been cancelled.

AFR managing editor Cosima Marriner told this column most people who had their attendances cancelled didn’t respond to the email, but those who did were provided with a virtual pass “free of charge”.

“To be clear we are talking about a very small group of individuals whose registration was cancelled,” she said.

New CFO at NAB

But back to NAB and one place where the curtailment of freedom of speech might be a little more appropriate.

Last week Barwon Heads-based banker Nathan Goonan was named new chief financial officer of Australia’s second biggest bank. He’s one of a new breed of bankers who commutes and sometimes telecommutes to NAB head office from his family’s west coast base.

Colleagues will see Goonan, who is on his second stint at NAB after a sidestep to investment banker at Goldman Sachs, in the office most days of the week. He spends a few nights a week in Melbourne – although at the end of last year sold his Hawthorn East home – and now calls the expansive $4.5m architectural seaside pile he shares with partner Emma Cahill home.

The pair will have a well-honed policy on pillow talk – Cahill is senior legal counsel alongside Ben Gray, Robin Bishop and Simon Harle at private equity outfit BGH Capital.

Goonan and Cahill bought their sea-change house from former car racing identity and now Total Tools chief executive Paul Dumbrell.

Meantime, Dumbrell has moved on via a $10m block overlooking Thirteenth Beach and the Barwon Heads golf course, where the former Supercars driver is planning to build a 60m mega-mansion that will cost $6m.

The development has upset locals and last we heard Dumbrell’s vision had been knocked back by council.

Champagne problems.

 

Fahour’s farewell

He might have been hoping to go out with a financial bang, but it’s looking more like Ahmed Fahour will be exiting Latitude Financial with more of a whimper.

The Mike Tilley-led board of Latitude, grappling with a hacking crisis that could cost it up to $50m in fines if found to be negligent in protecting customers, has restricted Fahour’s pay – he finishes on April 1 – for the months he will serve at CEO to his fixed base only, with no short or long-term performance payments.

According to Latitude’s annual report, under the “negotiated termination of his contract”, Fahour’s pay for his first quarter of service “will incorporate fixed remuneration only”, which will be one quarter of his $1.7m base – about $435,000.

In FY22 he didn’t get a short-term bonus either.

And his call options, as we reported last week, are well out of the money. The expiry on his 16.5 million options to buy Latitude shares has been extended 18 months to September next year, but are well out of the money.

Natasha Stipanov with Ann Peacock.

Latitude shares ended yesterday at $1.16, compared with the call options’ lowest exercise price of $3.12.

Fahour will be hoping new CEO Bob Belan turns the ship around fast.

Institutional memory

Nine months on from private equity giant Blackstone’s $9bn takeover of Crown Resorts, changes continue to flow through the casino empire.

It’s the end of an era in the Crown Melbourne communications office, with the redeployment of Natasha Stipanov from the role of spinmeister to head up the Crown Resorts Foundation and the gaming group’s community partnerships.

Stipanov’s move follows the exit last month of Ann Peacock as the face and voice of Crown after being with the group for close to three decades.

Stipanov, who has been at Crown for 16 years, negotiated difficult terrain that included Packer family ownership, royal commission-style inquiries and a private equity takeover.

They are a duo who know where all the bodies are buried.