Investec Bank (Australia) will report a loss for the six months to September, as a result of a restructuring its business that has been going on for the past few months.Investec PLC issued earnings guidance this week advising that profits for the six months to September would be "marginally behind" those of the previous corresponding period. One of the reasons for the group's soft performance is the loss arising from restructuring, as well as increased impairments in Australia.According to the investor briefing notes, the Australian operation has scaled back or withdrawn from securities, equity capital markets and structured financial products.Investec said: "We continue to focus on building our core business [in Australia], such as private banking, professional finance, corporate advisory, specialist lending and property funds."Expenses in the Australian business will show an increase due to integration and rationalisation costs.Investec Bank (Australia) made an operating profit of £3.4 million for the year to March, a turnaround from a loss of £65.8 million in 2011/12.At August 31, Investec Bank (Australia) had A$3.4 billion of "core" loans - an increase of 4.53 per cent since March. It had $2.8 billion of customer deposits - an increase of 12.6 per cent since March.Under former Investec Bank (Australia) chief executive, David Clarke, who joined the bank in 2009 and left earlier this year, the local operation embarked on an ambitious diversification strategy. Clarke was keen to develop fee-based income streams for a bank that had been overly reliant on property finance. This accounted for about 70 per cent of its assets before the financial crisis.However, the new business activities turned out to be in areas where earnings were flat (such as equity capital markets) or else volatile.His successor, Ciaran Whelan, said the business was getting back to basics.