‘Became wiser and gentler while still doggedly seeking the truth’

ROBERT ALEXANDER FERGUSON December 2, 1945-August 31, 2024

From tiny home in Padstow, schooling at East Hills Boys High in the 1960s, to Australia’s leading investment banker, is not a common route, then as now. Former CEO of Bankers Trust Australia (BTA), 1985 to 1999, then its chairman to 2001, Robert Alexander “Rob” Ferguson died in August after a long battle with the lung disease fibrosis.

Jen, his wife of 56 years, sister Fiona, and son-in-law Pete kept vigil on his last day.

Born premature at Camperdown Women’s Hospital at the end of 1945 to parents Hector, known as John, company secretary then financial controller, and June, nee Moulston, a clerk with the NSW Health Commission, he had lung issues from birth. He remembers: “As a child I had good parenting, but my parents were very incompatible and argued a lot at night. I’d lay in bed praying for fear of them hurting each other. I think that’s why I developed a compromiser, mediator attitude.”

At 19, at a dance at the Hurstville Civic Centre, he met Jenny Jarvis, then 17. Three weeks later they were engaged. They married in January 1968. Rob completed his honours’ year in economics that year, Jenny working as a music teacher. He never forgot what it was like to struggle financially. From a rented first house in Mortdale, they drove an old Vanguard inherited from his grandfather. Their first couch and television set were on hire-purchase from Norman Ross. Cheap red wine from Chile and a Chinese meal was a treat after he backed a winner at the races.

A student trip to China and Japan in 1967 awakened a curiosity about other places, what politics, good and bad can do. Rob remembers: “We were, give or take a few people, the only foreigners in China at that time as it was the cultural revolution.”

Hired by stockbroking firm William Tilley Hudson Evans, in 1969, his commercial life began. They posted him to Hong Kong in 1970. Stock-picking, understanding economic trends, what makes good businesses, the fallibility of decision-making with imperfect information, prepared him for the world to come. What he learnt in “Honkers”, he recalled: “was my precious period. It gave me the confidence of a much older person.”

An only child, Rachel, was born in 1971. Returning to Sydney, in early 1972 he found work at Ords BT Co, later renamed Bankers Trust Australia. The company’s Australian partners saw good potential.

He clocked 15 years at the top of Australia’s largest and most successful investment bank, BTA. Another two decades were spent around the boardroom tables of big-end-of-town companies including Westfield and GPT. But he never felt part of the establishment. A contrarian, widely read thinker, he touched and inspired many lives with his generosity, insight, mentoring, and provocative conversations.

Rob Ferguson took over as managing director of BT Australia in 1985.Credit: AFR

Ferguson was informed and inspired by his wide reading and engagement with clever people. He and his early mentor, Chris Corrigan, were public school boys, driven to do better than their “betters”. They set up Bankers Trust Australia in the 1970s to compete with lazy, high-fee-charging companies, AMP and the big banks, in financial planning and investment management. By the early 1980s, they were ready. Ferguson recollected: “The timing for me was wonderful: Deregulation was about to start. The establishment was about to get eaten alive by us and others in the jungle outside the citadel of the big end of town. We were angry, hateful that we didn’t have the establishment’s wealth, especially as funds managers we were providing a lot of their brokerage income.”

In Gideon Haigh’s history, One of a Kind. The Story of Bankers Trust Australia 1969-1999, Ferguson is described as “…a retiring character with an eclecticism that took him far from investment banking.” He eschewed simple-minded or ideological “solutions”. He thought women were as good as men. He vigorously promoted women in BT, believing this was one of the bank’s competitive strengths.

Ferguson concentrated on practical results and how to get there. Nearly 30 years ago, in a speech on management, he said: “… to the real-world manager, compromise is the only realistic way forward, given an environment of finite resources, imperfect knowledge, pressing deadlines and competing claims.”

A year ago, Ferguson wrote: “My business career prospered, but I took on too much stress through my inability to make decisive decisions... I developed a compromiser, mediator attitude. Seeing both sides. I’m still that way. But I have learnt very lately to speak up more – not raucously. To be a bit iconoclastic – a sceptic, to tell people I don’t agree, that I am not a sheep – to tell it firmly but nicely. All the times I haven’t spoken up have had stress effects on me which I rue, as I believe it affected my lungs.” Stress was part of the job. He spoke candidly to others about panic attacks.

Rob Ferguson: 15 years at the top of Australia’s largest and most successful investment bank BTA.Credit: Jessica Hromas, Fairfax Media

Due to Bankers Trust’s US parents’ management and capital problems, BTA declined and eventually all the Australian operations were sold, partly to Macquarie Bank. He retired from BT as CEO, before the tsunami. In his introduction to Haigh’s book, Ferguson says: “This unexpected development, with all its twists and turns, meant that while Gideon started off in dusty archives, he ended up chasing the story down the street.” In The Millionaires’ Factory, the history of Macquarie Bank, Alan Moss says: “BT in Australia was an outstanding organisation. They were our number one rival. We always thought they were our most formidable competitor.” Indeed, BTA eclipsed Macquarie in profitability for most of the years they competed.

In the early 1980s, helped Jen set up a highly regarded restaurant You & Me. Mum, dad and Rachel went to the Flemington markets most mornings – a 4.30am rise on Mondays and 5.30 the other days: fun but hard work.

Rob’s eclectic interests took him to the racetracks, and breeding horses. He was involved in nine group one winning races, including Row of Waves winning the Doncaster, Ha Ha winning the Golden Slipper, Velocatea the Goodwood Group 1, and Gypsy Goddess the Queensland Oaks.

He always needed to solve problems. Friends were gently needled to think harder. A glance at his emails this year reveals links to articles and podcasts on “Is private equity actually worth it?”; Professor Stephen Kotkin on the Ukraine war; economist turned China watcher William Overholt on China’s economy; Nobel prize winner Angus Deaton’s musings on the lessons of economics, the need to question assumptions and views as circumstances evolve.

He wanted to test his thinking. Jenny recollects: “In the early days I’d nudge him under the table when things got a little too heated, but he mellowed over the years. Became wiser and gentler while still doggedly seeking the truth.”

He was chair, then deputy chair, the Sydney Institute, and a director, the Sydney Writers’ Festival. A year ago, Rob wrote: “Here I am at 77 – with 40 per cent lung capacity, trying to stop the rot.” But that was not to be.

Rob and Jenny lost their daughter Rachel suddenly and unexpectedly in 2018. He is survived by his wife of 56 years, Jenny, son-in-law Peter, and granddaughters Heidi and Lucy, and members of his wider family.

Michael Easson AM is an Australian businessman and former trade union leader.