New head at Westpac bank

Friday 23rd January 2004

Lawyer-turned-banker David McLean is to head Westpac Institutional Bank in New Zealand.

His internal promotion follows a five-year career at Westpac that started with his running the debt capital markets group.

Westpac Institutional Bank has been named the top bank for three consecutive years for service and quality to large corporates in the Greenwich survey.

Westpac Banking Corporation was also named The National Business Review Bank of the Year for 2003 at the Vodafone Infinz awards.

McLean, son of former National MP Ian McLean, is an honours graduate of the Victoria Law School in Wellington and first worked as a lawyer in private practice and as in-house counsel for Natwest, before joining the capital markets group of Southpac/National Bank in 1988. He then started and developed a new debt origination business for Deutsche Morgan Grenfell, before moving to Westpac.

McLean believes New Zealand's financial markets are in a healthy state.

"Although there is still plenty of risk and volatility out there, New Zealand businesses are better able to deal with it than ever before," he said. "This is, first, because New Zealanders are getting more savvy. Although the weakness in the US dollar and the rise in the kiwi is hurting exporters, we are not seeing the same levels of financial stress as in previous times of rapid rate changes.

"People are better prepared to deal with the unpredictable and are getting much better at using the tools that are available to them."

A second reason was that New Zealanders were making the most of what is available offshore, overcoming the disadvantage of being based in a small and distant market.

"An example of this is the range of investments available to investors. The options have expanded enormously over the past couple of years allowing investors more high-quality investment opportunities to choose from, many of which are based on techniques originally developed offshore."

McLean said large corporate borrowers also had a wider range of innovative ways to meet their borrowing needs, either by using concepts such as securitisation or in some cases by borrowing directly from offshore.

He saw the development of transport infrastructure as a key issue in the next few years.

"An improved system will certainly assist to facilitate economic growth but some careful thinking is required as to the best way to finance this. Partnerships will need to be developed combining a mix of public and private sector funding to ensure the necessary projects are built, and built as fast as possible," he said.

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