ABN Amro CEO Swaak to step down in 2025, before end of term
ABN Amro CEO to leave three years before end of term
Says right time has come to look for successor
Analyst says announcement is negative surprise
Shares down 2.5%
Adds share price in paragraph 2, analyst reaction in paragraphs 5-7, 2023 results and buybacks in paragraphs 9-10
By Bart H. Meijer
AMSTERDAM, Aug 1 (Reuters) -The chief executive of ABN Amro ABNd.AS, Robert Swaak, will step down in the first half of next year, three years before the end of his term, the Dutch lender said on Thursday.
ABN Amro gave no reason for the sudden departure, whose announcement sent its shares down 2.5% by 0820 GMT, placing them at the bottom of Amsterdam's blue chip AEX index.
Swaak, 64, was appointed in 2020 and given a second four-year term earlier this year. He said in a statement it was a good moment to step down to give the bank's board time to find a successor for what he called a "new strategic phase".
"When I was asked for a second term, I knew I would possibly make way for a successor at a suitable moment before the end of my term," he said.
ING analyst Jason Kalamboussis said Swaak's announcement was a negative surprise, at a moment when ABN's board seemed to have stabilised following departures of other executives in the past year.
"Here we are with another management change at ABN. With new financial targets announced in February, it does come as a surprise," he said in a note.
"With issues for example in data quality, and still on costs, it is probably right to be looking to have a person committed for a longer term, to go to a new strategy for the group," he added.
Largely state-owned ABN is one of three dominant banks in the Netherlands.
It reported in February a net profit of 3.5 billion euros ($3.8 billion) over 2023, up 49% from the year before as net interest income increased 16%.
The bank has bought back shares worth a total of 1.5 billion euros since early 2022.
Since its bailout by the Dutch state in 2008, ABN has refocused its operations and orientation on its home market, cutting thousands of jobs.
ABN Amro was re-privatised in 2015, but the Dutch state still holds about 40% of its shares. It held a majority stake until September last year.
In May, the lender agreed to buy German private bank Hauck Aufhäuser Lampe (HAL) for 672 million euros from China's Fosun International to expand in wealth management, its largest deal since the global financial crisis.
($1 = 0.9275 euros)
Reporting by Bart Meijer; Editing by Jason Neely, Clarence Fernandez and Emelia Sithole-Matarise
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