Macquarie schedules EGM

David Clarke

Macquarie Bank will hold an Extraordinary General Meeting on October 25 aimed at getting shareholder approval to proceed with its restructuring including the establishment of a non-operating holding company.

The timing of the meeting follows confirmation that the bank has approved in-principle approval for the move from the Australian Prudential Regulation Authority.

As well, the bank has received commitments for a term bank facility of $8 billion from a syndicate of major international and Australian banks.

Macquarie Bank chairman David Clarke said the non-operating holding company structure would provide Macquarie with the flexibility to continue to pursue growth in the regions and markets in which the company operated.

“As we stated at our full year results briefing and at the annual general meeting, the Bank’s diverse international businesses are now growing faster than our Australian banking business and a significant portion of Macquarie’s businesses, while financial services in nature, are not strictly banking,” he said.

Clarke said that Macquarie had effectively outgrown the conventional banking regulatory model.

He said that in addition to the in-principle APRA approval, legislation had recently been passed facilitating the creation of bank non-operating holding companies and Macquarie had also received most of the private tax rulings that were also necessary.

Clarke acknowledged, however, that some aspects of the proposal remained subject to the approval of the Federal Treasurer, the Australian Securities Exchange and other authorities.