Even some ANZ veterans were surprised by the scrum that enveloped new chief executive Nuno Matos at the Fullerton Hotel in Sydney on Tuesday, as he faced the media for the first time since starting in the role in May.
For an institution that has been through several scandals in recent years — not to mention the white-hot public anger of the banking royal commission — that in itself is telling.
Matos’ first major public appearance came just over a week after Capital Brief revealed he was planning to cut as many as 5,000 positions at the bank. On Tuesday, ANZ confirmed those cuts — 3,500 permanent jobs and 1,000 contractors — would take place over the next year, as the former HSBC executive looks to simplify the bank and sharpen its focus on customers.
Job cuts of that scale are always a big story, and a larger-than-usual crowd of journalists turned up to a doorstop press conference on the sidelines of the Financial Review’s Asia Summit to hear from the man who signed off on them. The regular financial services reporters readied themselves for the Hunger Games-like scramble to get a question in against TV anchors they rarely encountered.
