Westpac wants to reduce costs and focus on retail banking and mortgages, but inflation has driven up expenses and made it hard to determine a fair value for BT Panorama.
like its BT Personal and Corporate Super Funds, its auto-loan portfolios and its Advance Asset Management boutique funds business in recent years to trim expenses.“Westpac has signalled that it wants to exit this market,” said Steve Prendeville, founder and director of consultancy Forte Asset Solutions, adding that the bank’s main motivation for a sale was to generate a return for its shareholders.
The bank wants to focus on core businesses such as retail banking and mortgage lending, said John Storey, the head of bank research at UBS. Despite the strategy, Westpac revised its estimated costs to rise to $8.6 billion from $8 billion for the 2024 financial year, because of higher-than-expected inflationary pressures and persistent regulatory and compliance costs.
Buyers are less willing to fork out money for assets like Panorama that have slumped alongside the broader dip in the sector.
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