Francesco De Ferrari to resign today, page-92

Breaking up isn’t easy at AMP

AMP is about to be broken up, so it makes sense that the company and its chief executive Francesco De Ferrari would be contemplating his future, too.

Sometimes, you just know it’s over. A relationship, a job – even a company.

There’s nothing particularly surprising about the fact that the AMP board and chief executive Francesco De Ferrari are locked in discussions about his future at the faded icon – or, as the company put it on Friday morning, “working together and constructively discussing the future strategy and leadership of the group”.

After all, AMP is about to be broken up. It follows that De Ferrari and the company will eventually break up too.

In the next few months, AMP will look nothing like the business De Ferrari took control of in December 2018, as AMP Capital is essentially split three ways.

Should AMP’s proposed joint venture with US-listed investment giant Ares go ahead, the biggest and most profitable part of the business – AMP Capital’s private markets division, which invests in real estate and infrastructure – will be out of De Ferrari’s hands.

AMP Capital’s global equities and fixed income business is also on the sale block and likely to leave the group.

The remaining chunk of AMP Capital, which is known as the multi-asset group and is focused on public markets, will then be folded into the rump of AMP, which will include its superannuation business, its wealth platform business, its small bank and its struggling financial advice division.

De Ferrari’s turnaround hasn’t worked, although realistically AMP was clearly too far gone when he arrived.

What’s left of AMP will be a much smaller wealth group focused on Australia’s retail market. That’s not likely to be the sort of business De Ferrari wants to run, or perhaps even should run.

Arguably this “New AMP” needs a leader with deep experience in the Australian market and particularly the retail end of the wealth market.

De Ferrari’s outlook is much more global – 17 years at Credit Suisse, top of the class at Stern Business School at New York University, roles across Asia and Europe – and his reputation is that of a transformation specialist.

It was De Ferrari’s work turning around Credit Suisse’s Italian business after the global financial crisis and later its Asian wealth management arm that won him the chance to fix AMP’s woes.

Has news of the talks over De Ferrari’s likely exit leaked before the AMP board would have liked? Without doubt, particularly given the Ares deal still is some way from being finalised.