Alexis George has signed off her last full-year as chief executive of AMP with a 21 per cent bump in underlying net profit after tax, and insists she leaves the business in better shape for her successor Blair Vernon, who takes the reins on 20 March, than when she took up the role in August 2021.
The company declared a final dividend of 2 cents a share, taking the full-year payout to 4 cents. But on a day when the local sharemarket scaled new heights, AMP went strongly against the trend with its shares down about 26 per cent at the close of market.
AMP posted statutory net profit after tax (NPAT) of $133 million for FY25, an 11.3 per cent drop from the prior year. Underlying NPAT – which excludes FY25 litigation, business simplification and advice business sale costs totalling $152 million – increased by 21 per cent to $285 million.
Underlying NPAT in the platforms division improved 9.3 per cent to $106 million and in the superannuation and investment division by 14.8 per cent to $62 million.
Revenue for the year was relatively flat at $1.29 billion, just $35 million or 2.8 per cent higher than the prior year. George says revenue growth does not fully reflect the improved cashflows “because the revenue is a combination of the wealth businesses in Australia, New Zealand, the bank and our partnerships”.
“We’ve got in there the bank, [where] we’re really managing volume, so we’re not growing the traditional lending book there; and we’ve got our business partnerships,” George tells Professional Planner.
“It’s really hard to compare our revenue line, given the complexity of our portfolio, with maybe one of our direct listed competitors.”
Growth of 2.8 per cent “is the factual, but what I’d spend a bit more time looking at is in our wealth business, at the flows”, George says.
Net cashflows excluding pension payments in the platforms business grew to $5.1 billion from $2.8 billion in FY24 and from $1.4 billion in FY23; and net cashflows in the S&I business improved for the second year in a row, to an outflow of $542 million from an outflow of $1 billion in FY24 and $2.1 billion in FY23.
George says AMP would “love to be at neutral flows by the end of [FY]26”.
“I’m not saying that’s easy, but that’s certainly what our ambition is. And with the solutions we put in place there, our top-quartile performance and good service, we’re in a good position to be able to deliver on that.”
Under control
Controllable costs fell 7 per cent, or $45 million, from $648 million to $603 million, and included items such as employee, technology, project and property costs. George says AMP absorbed higher-than-expected inflation but still managed to achieve its FY25 target.
“We’ve gone through quite a program to reduce controllable costs, but more importantly, that program has enabled us to build that cost muscle, and we have to continue to work on that. But you can’t hold or absorb inflation every single year [and] there are likely to be some inflationary impacts in the future.”
George says AMP’s priority is to “continue to build on the growth that we’ve delivered over the last two years”.
“That is absolutely priority number one,” she says.
“That means continuing to bring more advisers onto our platform, more adviser groups onto our platform, that’s number one priority.”
AMP will also capitalise on the improvement in its brand reputation to push deeper into the direct-to-consumer space.
“The second thing for us is we’ve got to keep innovating,” George says.
“There’s a real focus on the retirement space in Australia now, and I think we’ve proven we can innovate in that space. We’ve got solutions out there. So I want to continue to do that.
“And we continue to focus on making advisers more efficient so they can see more customers. And we’ve got to continue to embrace change and new ways of working, and that includes leveraging AI, that includes working with partners to take advantage of the skills they’ve got and maintaining that cost discipline.”
Organic growth priority
George says organic growth remains the priority but the company would consider acquisitions should the present themselves.
“There is a lot of change happening in the market in Australia, and I think [you can] expect us to look at opportunities. Whether any of that ever happens is a different thing, but we, of course, have to look,” she says.
Reflecting on her final full-year as CEO, and on her tenure since 2021, George says “I don’t think as a CEO or a senior executive, you ever finish the job”.
“I certainly feel like that, always wanting more, more, more. I would really like to see us continue to demonstrate growth, because I think we’ve got all of the attributes internally. I just would love all of our environment to recognise that. I know the team will continue that, but growth would be really important to me. I’d like to see some more of that.
“In terms of the things that are better, I think our reputation. I’m really proud of the fact that it’s the best since 2008 and I’m really proud of the team that’s here. So I think for me, they’re the probably the two things: the quality of the team and the reputation. I mean, the market makes judgments all the time, but we’ve just got to keep working hard on delivery.”
