Macquarie taps veteran Greg Ward to succeed high-profile CEO Wikramanayake

By Scott Murdoch and Christine Chen

SYDNEY, July 23 (Reuters) - Australian investment ‌bank Macquarie Group on Thursday ​appointed long-serving executive ​Greg Ward to replace retiring CEO Shemara Wikramanayake, a decision investors said showed confidence in the bank's strategy to safeguard earnings and profit against global market volatility.

Wikramanayake, 64, will leave on November 6, the bank said.

Ward is a 30-year veteran of Macquarie and most recently headed up Macquarie's retail ‌banking business, which has made a concerted push to erode the market share of Australia's big four banks in mortgages and retail ⁠deposits.

"All of the businesses are showing wonderful growth over the long term and certainly have under Shemara's tenure. I think we're tremendously well positioned across the entire platform," he said.

"There's always market events and geopolitical events, ‌and we run a very conservative balance sheet, ‌and I think we're well equipped to handle any of those challenges."

Investors said the appointment of Ward, 58, signalled the board wanted to continue the strategy adopted by Wikramanayake, who reshaped Macquarie to focus on asset management and infrastructure investment to make it less reliant on volatile investment banking fees.

"He's probably a safe pair of hands," ​said Andy Forster, a portfolio manager at Argo Investments, a top-20 shareholder in Macquarie.

"I don't think anything's radically going to change."

PREPARED FOR UNPREDICTABLE CHALLENGES

Macquarie Chair Glenn Stevens said both Wikramanayake and Ward, who was chief financial officer during the global financial crisis, had deftly handled unpredictable challenges such as the pandemic and war in parts of ⁠the world.

"There'll always be things we might not be able to predict and what we need is agility and decisiveness to deal with those. Shemara has shown that in an exemplary fashion, and Greg has shown that in ​all stages of his career," Chair Glenn Stevens told reporters on a call Thursday.

Stevens said the bank's board did not look outside of Macquarie to find the next chief executive. Ward's appointment was signed off on Wednesday night.

Macquarie shares were down 0.6% on ​Thursday while the S&P/ASX 200 was up 0.55%.

Wikramanayake, under whom the bank's share price more than doubled ‌in her nearly eight years at the helm, is one of Australia's best paid company bosses and most high-profile female chief executives.

She was paid A$26.5 million in 2025, reinforcing Macquarie's reputation in Australia as the "Millionaires Factory" as the bank's remuneration policy is closely aligned to ⁠executive performance.

The bank faced a shareholder revolt over executive pay at last year's annual general meeting, with Stevens saying the board had reviewed existing remuneration agreements.

"The board took that feedback very seriously, and we've worked hard over the past year to carefully address shareholder concerns," he said on Thursday.

Macquarie did not release details of Ward's pay package as CEO on Thursday.

Macquarie's shares have climbed from A$124.93 ⁠in mid-2018 when Wikramanayake's appointment was announced to A$254.93 as of Wednesday's close, outperforming a more than 40% rise in the S&P/ASX 200 index over the same period.

CHAIR ALSO SET TO RETIRE

Stevens, a ​former Reserve Bank of Australia governor, is due to retire next year and said succession planning was underway to find his replacement.

"I think we will be in good shape, and I believe there are people on the board who are more than capable of doing the role," he said.

In a first-quarter trading update released on Thursday, Macquarie said its Commodities and Global Markets division's net profit ‌contribution had grown substantially, driven by increased income from commodities trading.

The bank does not release quarterly profit figures.

At its annual general meeting in Sydney, shareholders also scrutinised Macquarie's choice of its new auditor KPMG. Macquarie director Michelle Hinchliffe was an auditor at KPMG, ‌which is embroiled in a client leak scandal.

Stevens said the board had launched formal inquiries into Macquarie's audit tender process, including commissioning a review by law firm Allens. He said there were no "special favours" ⁠granted to KPMG in light of Hinchliffe's association with the firm.

"We ‌have confidence in the integrity of the process by ​which we appointed KPMG on our side. We are seeking the appropriate assurances on what happened on their side," he said.

(Reporting by Scott Murdoch and Christine Chen in Sydney and Sneha Kumar, Nikita Maria Jino and Shivangi Lahiri in Bengaluru; Writing by Alasdair Pal; Editing by Pooja Desai ‌and Sonali Paul)

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