KUALA LUMPUR: Tan Sri Azman Hashim has built a banking empire that he believes can rise to scale greater heights, even as the 78-year-old banker scales down his role.
Azman founded the AmBank Group (AMMB Holdings Bhd) 35 years ago, and has nurtured it into one of Malaysia’s biggest and most stable financial institutions today.
Backed by a team of senior bankers, he aims to transform the bank into one of the top four banks in the country, up from its current sixth ranking.
“We’ve got a lot of new people in senior management positions, and we brought in some strong people.
“I think the current senior management is very strong.
“We just want to make sure they work together as a team. That’s the group CEO’s (Datuk Sulaiman Mohd Tahir) job,” said Azman.
Sulaiman, who was present, said AmBank wanted to be among the top four in every market segment.
“We want to be in the top four not on asset size, but performance.”
In his career, Azman has had to weather several financial storms, particularly the one in 1997/1998, which nearly collapsed the banking group.
The group, said Azman, had potential to be greater than it was now, with assets of RM133.76 billion as at March 31 last year, putting it at No. 6 on the country’s banking chart.
He wants to play a less hectic role in running the group after announcing plans to retire from the chairmanship of six AmBank companies, including flagships AmBank Bhd and AmInvestment Bank Bhd, by 2018.
Much work for the group’s next growth path will be carried out by the team led by Sulaiman.
Nevertheless, the father of five will remain chairman and a substantial shareholder of holding company AMMB Holdings.
“I don’t have family members in the bank, so when I finally retire, there’ll be somebody else, I guess,” said Azman in an exclusive interview.
“But in the meantime, I think we’ve got the right people to chair or head us and the subsidiaries.
“At least, in the next two years, we can plan it from here. No more surprises.
“I’m still doing the same thing here, except I don’t attend the board meetings of the subsidiaries. But, I’ll be following up on their progress.
“They come from different backgrounds, different banks and different cultures.
“It is a marriage of different cultures. We’ve also got a culture here. Thirty-five years.
“Certain good things we have, we don’t want to lose them. All this, we have to work out.
“So, that’s why my role as chairman of the group is still there to make sure this works. I’m still there, which is useful.”
Even with “less” of him at the operating subsidiaries, Azman still believes that AmBank Group is heading towards its next chapter of stellar growth.
“We’ve got a good platform, good foundation. Now, we’ve got good people. Now, we have to make sure that we are executing well. We got people to work together. That is the main thing.”
AmBank is banking on a strategic plan to be among Malaysia’s top four banks by 2020.
So far, said Azman, the aspiration was well on track.
Born in July 1939 in Kampung Baru here, Azman sat the Senior Cambridge Examination in 1954 and obtained a first grade.
He was born to a family of 13 siblings. His father was a technician and his mother was the headmistress of Kampung Baru Girls School.
He had wanted to pursue medicine, but was offered accountancy instead on a Colombo Plan Scholarship, which took him to Australia from 1955 to 1960.
He became a chartered accountant and chartered secretary before the age of 21.
His professional experience began in Perth, Australia, where he was employed by Messrs O.L. Haines & Co from 1955 to 1960.
Azman’s venture into the banking sector was planned. In 1960, he returned home to hone his banking skills with Bank Negara Malaysia (BNM) until mid-1964.
“It was not by chance. You see, I started at Bank Negara for four years.
“At the same time, I was offered a job by CDC (foreign-owned plantation group).
“But, those days in the 1960s, for the Malays, the best thing you want to do is get a government job. Don’t go into private-sector business unless you cannot get a job.
“My father said Bank Negara was a good choice,” said Azman, who said in jest that the late Tun Ismail Mohamed Ali, the then BNM governor, had said he could one day become the central bank’s governor if he stayed loyal.
In May 1964, he left to start his own accountancy practice, Azman & Co, which later grew into a partnership, Azman Wong Salleh & Co.
Azman, who is also executive chairman of Amcorp Group Bhd, married Tunku Arishah Tunku Maamor on March 3, 1963, after completing his studies and attaining a successful career.
He joined the board of Malayan Banking Bhd in 1966, and was its executive director from 1971 to 1980. He was then appointed executive chairman of Kwong Yik Bank Bhd in 1980, a post he held until 1982.
In 1982, he bought AmBank Group in its original guise, Arab-Malaysian Development Bank.
Azman is a survivor, facing his baptism of fire in the corporate world first during the May 13, 1969, racial riots, when he was building his stock market assets, and then, the property crash in 1985, three years after founding AmBank Group.
Later, there was the deepest recession that the Malaysian economy had ever experienced in the form of the Asian financial crisis in 1997/1998.
Again, he was able to wriggle his way out, although this time, it cost him a lot more.
Azman said the crisis was one of his lowest points.
“We had never lost money before. It was the first time we lost money, about RM1 billion.
“A year after that, we recovered. We made that big loss because two, three years earlier, we finally managed to get a commercial bank after bidding for so many years for a licence.
“We bought Securities Pacific Bank, which was owned by Bank of America. I think it cost us RM300 million.
“So, we did a lot of lending, mainly to corporates, amid booming times. Then, came the crisis, which mostly hit corporate loans.
“Sometimes, you are a company doing well, but when the crisis came, you had tight credit and no liquidity, and banks just cut the line.
“If you don’t use the line, it gets chopped. Foreign banks were worse. I was the victim.
“Foreign banks got the instruction from the head office to cut from this sector, chop the line. At the time, we mostly financed local companies.
“That was a very tough time. Fortunately, we recovered the next year.
“So, from then until now, no losses. That was the worst crisis.”
At the height of the financial crisis, he almost lost his banking empire.
Under a BNM-driven banking consolidation programme, AmBank was to be swallowed by a smaller financial group.
However, Azman convinced the authorities to give his group anchor bank status.
In the aftermath, AmBank rebounded strongly. It paved the way for Azman to package a restructuring scheme to address the group’s RM1.4 billion in debts.
Creditors approved the scheme. Azman’s personal debts, which, in 1998, were said to be about RM600 million, were reduced to a more manageable level.
He said the banking group was very professionally run.
“I think that is the main thing. From 200 people, now we have 11,000 plus.”
But, he said, he would not give up his shareholding.
“I’m still holding on to my shares with my holding company.
“We still have a lot of work to do; to coordinate and to make sure people gel together at the management and board levels as a team.” Additional reporting by Amir Hisyam Rasid