The head of one of Australia’s top banks resigned today to spend more time with his family, saying five and a half years at the top had “taken a personal toll”.
Cameron Clyne, 46, has been chief executive of National Australia Bank, which owns both the ailing Clydesdale and Yorkshire banks in the UK, since 2009. He will retire in August.
He said: “I am leaving to spend some much needed time with my young family.”
The 6ft 6in former rugby player, who has two young children, also joked that he wanted to ensure that his marriage lasted longer than his time as the bank’s chief.
Last month Clydesdale announced it was closing 28 “unsustainable” branches. NAB has tried but failed to sell or merge its underperforming UK business for some time.
Today the new chief executive Andrew Thorburn, who has been running NAB’s New Zealand business, said he wanted to concentrate on the bank’s core businesses in Australia and New Zealand and would “shrink UK commercial property loans”.
Clyne was widely seen as a potential successor to Stephen Hester when he was pushed out of taxpayer-controlled Royal Bank of Scotland by the Chancellor last year. But that job ended up going to New Zealander Ross McEwan.
