Comment: Clydesdale liberation cornerstone of NAB sales job

National Australia Bank has its sales pitch underway at long last for the IPO of its Clydesdale Bank in Britain, dropping a superficially impressive disclosure pack on the market yesterday.
Fresh disclosures were limited or non-existent, with the tone of the presentation chirpy - if implausible.

Four strategic aims for Clydesdale rate a mention by NAB:

• leverage capabilities in existing core regional markets;

• continue national growth strategy focusing on selected products and sectors where we have a strong history and established capabilities;

• deliver a consistently superior experience to our customers underpinned by local community brands and a customer driven omni-channel strategy; and
 
• deliver enhanced shareholder returns.

A later section on "performance" effectively ignores this last goal, with plenty of space for excusing differences between actual financial results and "underlying" returns.

An underlying return on tangible equity of 7.7 per cent in 2014 might delight the board of an Australian credit union and rate as middling by the standards of the country's smaller banks, but it's a dismal product from the custodians of a business that once harboured global pretensions.

The most telling selling point NAB left out.

What will make Clydesdale finally stand out in Britain's crowded banking market is that NAB's management and board will no longer have anything to do with it.