There are more previews this morning of today's strategy briefing by National Australia Bank. The bank's management will make the presentation at 10.30 in Sydney and presumably will publish the supporting materials earlier than that.
The Age and the Financial Review reported that John Hooper, chief executive of nabCapital, will take up a management position with NAB's business in Britain (Hooper hails from England).
These follow up reports by News Limited yesterday that suggest NAB will shift some of the customer list of nabCapital to the business banking division in Australia and seek to reduce the servicing cost of managing credit and other risks.
Relying on a preview of Citigroup's equity analysts
The Australian reported that NAB may go so far as to re-establish an office of an Australian CEO, a role ditched only three months ago by the new NAB CEO, Cameron Clyne.
The Age also reported that longstanding NAB trouble shooter Gavin Slater, who has recently worked for the bank in Britain, will take up a senior operational role in Australia.
Several reports conclude that Clyne would like to sell NAB's banking businesses in Britain but won't as they cannot be sold in the current market conditions of a deep recession and extensive government ownership of large and small banks.
On the cost front The Age reported that NAB will outline plans to keep costs under control by reducing staff numbers, mostly through offshoring and merging several business units, and with the bank likely to make a semantic distinction between initiatives of this kind and the wider job-cutting targets that may inform them.