Westpacwealth management group executive David Clarke yesterday confirmed what the financial services industry had long guessed – theSagittaname will be dropped in favour ofBTin the combined funds management business.
The announcement came yesterday as the bank released its annual results. Clarke said that BT was still suffering from outflows, with $80-$100 million lost in the first four weeks of October and $935 million lost in the September quarter.
Clarke also revealed that net retail funds under management had fallen to just under $11 billion and the trend was not likely to be fully reversed until 2005. This, he said, had been expected and Westpac had made provisions for it within the budget before purchasing the BT business.
Clarke said the integration of BT and Sagitta into the bank was proceeding well and BT was still attracting inflows, worth $716 million, from external financial dealerships into its wrap product and had also secured a major institutional mandate since the sale was announced.
In stating that Westpac would retain the BT name, despite spending $500,000 to develop the Sagitta brand after the Rothschild purchase, Clarke said rebranding of the whole group would take place from the second quarter of 2003.
“There’s been clearly some damage that has weakened the BT brand over the past 12 months but of the brands that we had at our disposal it was by far the best regarded and best recognised,” Clarke said.
The bank posted a record $2.192 billion net profit and forecast earnings per share growth (EPS) of between seven and nine per cent in 2003 after reporting a 15 per cent rise in net profit for 2001/02.
