ahmed fahour, page-7

Here's an excerpt from brisbanetimes.com.au this morning, looks like I wasn't far off:

When John Mulcahy quit a fortnight ago, the company set about desperately looking for a replacement. As chief financial officer, Skilton should have been a contender, particularly given he had been at the banking and insurance group since 2001 and watched the whole debacle unfold.

Instead, the Suncorp board settled on Ahmed Fahour, the disaffected head of Australian operations at National Australia Bank who had been passed over for the top job and who was scouting around for another gig.

Unfortunately, Fahour wasn't interested. He didn't want to leave Melbourne, for a start. And the board apparently wasn't all that keen on his plan to break up the company, separating it into an insurance group and a banking operation.

That should come as something of a surprise in banking circles, as many see the break-up of Suncorp as inevitable.

In any case, Fahour had irons in other fires and on Friday announced he was going to head the Federal Government's new "Ruddbank".

The rest of the article is here: http://www.brisbanetimes.com.au/news/business/sinkorswim-time-at-suncorp/2009/02/24/1235237597024.html