Standard Bank Investment Corporation (Stanbic) was forcing its senior management to `walk the plank` by asserting that employees would jump ship in the event of a merger between Standard Bank and Nedcor, Richard Laubscher, the chief executive at Nedcor, said on Friday.
In an address to the Fleming Martin financial sector conference in Cape Town, Laubscher also said that the common perception that 10 000 jobs would be lost through proposed Nedcor/Stanbic merger was incorrect.
If one took into account the fact that both banks had an average natural attrition rate of 14,6 percent of all employees a year, about 20 000 employees would leave the banks over the three-year business plan of the merger - despite the fact that the business plan envisaged there to be 10 000 fewer jobs available.
``The merged entity will be a net hirer of people over three years - and everywhere else in the world where bank consolidation has taken place, competitor banks, keen to expand their franchises, have picked up the staff who lost jobs,`` he said.
On a stand-alone basis, Stanbic would have to reduce its staff by about 5 500 anyway, while Nedcor would have to reduce its staff by about 1 500, he said.
Jacko Maree, Stanbic`s chief executive, said earlier this week that many senior personnel would leave the bank if it merged, particularly at Standard Corporate and Merchant Bank (SCMB) and at Standard`s London operations. But Laubscher countered that a more objective view should have been taken by Stanbic, as there was already a skills shortage in South Africa.
The operations of Nedcor`s merchant banking operation, Nedcor Investment Bank, and SCMB were complementary, and a consensual approach, based on successful and incentive-based models used at other big banking mergers around the world, would be used to bring the two staff complements together. In addition, ``intriguing discussions`` were under way to bring a large overseas partner into the merchant and investment banking business.
``With a global player in place ... we have a real hot dogger ... I find it difficult to believe the SCMB people will not understand the benefits of this,`` he said, adding it was a tragedy the bidding process had polarised staff to the extent that it had.
But Nedcor planned to ``substantially incentivise staff`` and it had designed a structure which would provide for ``very attractive`` positions and packages for Standard`s high profile executives.
Turning to shareholder issues, he said shareholders had the right to at least consider Nedcor`s bid, and it was not the job of a board of executives to create a multitude of obstacles to prevent shareholders from exercising this option.