The return on equity of the most profitable of the Community Bank franchises of Bendigo and Adelaide Bank is 41 per cent, the bank's managing director, Mike Hirst, wrote in an article published in
The Age on Saturday.
Hirst's article otherwise reprises data on the Community Bank network canvassed recently by the bank's chief financial officer and included in other reviews by the bank of the scheme's history.
The bank's CFO, Richard Fennell, told a Macquarie Equities' conference in early May that 10 per cent of Community Bank branches were in negative equity. Two-thirds posted profits in 2010, Fennell said, while nine per cent incurred losses.
The Hirst article may be a delayed response to a critical (page one) feature on the Community Bank network published in the newspaper six weeks ago, though Hirst does not cite this article.