Rear Window
BoQ belatedly reveals exec’s exposure to $42m in loans
Myriam RobinColumnistThe investors and analysts cranky at the Sydney-run Bank of Queensland for missing profit targets must feel no better for page 121 of its annual report, released last week.
It details previously undisclosed commercial loans made to a related party of retail banking head and ME Bank chief Martine Jager.
Then-BoQ chairman Patrick Allaway with then-CEO George Frazis, before their falling out. Tertius Pickard
As far as such disclosures go, finance executives banking with their employers are a dime a dozen, and there’s nothing wrong with that. But two things make these loans unusual.
The first is that the Bank of Queensland did not disclose them earlier, having only realised it needed to do so after a recent review of such matters in FY23.
And second, there’s their sheer size: $42 million at September 1, having gone as high as $45 million earlier in the year.
The loans, we are told, are not Jager’s personally, or, indeed, even held directly by a family member of hers. ASIC records reveal Jager’s husband is Lambros Sioros, a managing director of Liberman-backed Melbourne investment house CVS Lane, and in that role a director of many of its investment vehicles. Some of which, it seems, utilise BoQ financing.
Like many banks, BoQ offers staff an employee discount on some loans. But we’re assured that’s not happening here, the loans provided on arm’s length commercial terms. This might be because, as the annual report notes, the loans in part predate Jager’s BoQ employment, which began in April 2021, midway through the bank’s short-lived George Frazis era.
Jager was a former Westpac colleague of Frazis, and has stayed at BoQ past his departure. The board abruptly terminated his contract in November last year.
That storyline also crossed with Jager’s personal life. See, Frazis wasn’t just her boss, but also became the godfather of her child. This was disclosed to then-chairman and now-CEO Patrick Allaway, unlike Frazis’ similar relationship to the child of ex-business banking head Peter Sarantzouklis, which when revealed by the Chanticleer column last year was apparently news to Allaway.
The then-chairman proclaimed himself shocked and surprised to discover how the CEO he appointed was running the bank. Allaway’s now running it himself, though as the annual report’s related party transactions suggest, discoveries never cease.
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