DECEMBER—The country’s treasurer gave ANZ Group Holdings the go-ahead to buy Suncorp Bank, which would be the biggest acquisition in Australian banking in decades.
The 4.9 billion Australian dollar (US$3.26 billion) deal was announced in July 2022, and Treasurer Jim Chalmers gave his approval as long as the new company didn’t close any regional branches or lose any jobs for three years.
As an added bonus, Suncorp, an ASX-listed insurance company, said it would not charge ANZ the A$10 million annual licensing fee that it had agreed to pay for five years. It said it still planned to give the money back to shareholders and that the process would begin in the first quarter of 2025.
They said they hope to complete the deal by the end of July, once the merger laws in Queensland that have already been approved go into effect.
Commonwealth Bank bought Bankwest for A$2.1 billion in 2008, which was the last big purchase of an Australian bank by another bank. Commonwealth stopped selling business products under the brand in 2022, and this year it announced that it would shut down all Bankwest branches and only offer products online.
The ANZ-Suncorp deal has already been approved by competition regulators, even though some people in the industry said it could hurt competition.
“We’re pleased to be one step closer to this strategically important acquisition, which will allow us to add scale to our retail and commercial businesses while enabling ANZ to more effectively compete in the Australian market,” ANZ CEO Shayne Elliott said.
