CBA's chilling message
CEO Matt Comyn told Capital Brief the dominant lender still has plenty of room for improvement. And he plans to stick around to make it happen.
Matt Comyn is not going anywhere. At least “not by choice”, the CBA chief executive told Capital Brief following the bank's better-than-expected $5.13 billion first-half profit, which was warmly received by the market.
And why would he? Sure, as we've previously pointed out, Comyn has now been in the role for seven years, which is towards the upper end of the range for what is normally considered best practice for ASX-listed company CEOs.
But on the other hand, CBA is in rude health under his stewardship, and the gap between the bank and its major rivals is only widening. Revenue was better than expected, margins ticked higher, bad debt provisions were not as bad as forecast and the dividend was up. Credit risk-weighted assets also grew at record levels in the half. To cap it all off, the stock closed at fresh record highs.
Comyn is not getting ahead of himself, telling Capital Brief he was pleased with what he called an “adequate” result but the bank still has “lots of opportunities for improvement relative to our potential”.
