which way anz shareprice on monday , page-13

Ant

I reckon the main reason they "are`some of the Best "franchises" in the world" is not as much by design, more-so by default.

They operate in a virtually protected environment, both politically and geographically. Any foreign financial institution that comes here can only operate on the fringe (with the exception of GE).

There is no real competition for the big4 and, as such, issues such as OPES (there, I said it!!), are only a short term distraction for them.

They are literally "cash cows", generating such large profits that management can make some ill-informed overseas expansion plans and get away with it. The $4 bio+ write off of Homeside in the USA for NAB, and ANZ's piece-meal push into Asia over the last 10-15 years come to mind.

To my mind it is not necessarily the fact they are the best run in the world, rather they have no viable long term competition. Hence keep racking up increasing profits year after year. This is no doubt the reason they trade at a p/e premium to their global peers.

Which way for the ANZ share price on Monday? The Dow did nothing so I don't expect our market will do much either. ANZ "may" receive some negative sentiment from the latest Opes (there, I said it again!) revelations, but probably not much.

The insto's, who have a large say in the prices for the banks, will no doubt have already factored the at-worst scenario and probably do nothing.

Aside from that, and as I pointed out from the outset, the biggest damage to the longer term performance of the ANZ price will be the loss of institutional confidence in managements policies, direction and risk-control. That aspect will take years to recover.

As an aside, I read in todays press that NAB was looking at buying out the Ing Australia operations - if that does eventuate then yet again, there goes another competitor for the big4.