‘Morale is at an all-time low’: AMP Australia to cut 20pc of staff

AMP Australia will sack up to 20 per cent of its staff over the next year during a restructure designed to make the business more sustainable as the wealth giant focuses on domestic operations under a new executive leadership team.

Former Sunsuper chief executive Scott Hartley was appointed last December to lead AMP Australia – the business responsible for superannuation, banking and wealth management – replacing Alex Wade who resigned after less than 18 months amid misconduct allegations.

Mr Hartley hired a new executive team this month to create a “lean, efficient and competitive” business and is now working on a restructure plan that includes staff layoffs designed to save $300 million by the end of next year.

AMP Australia chief Scott Hartley. Credit:Paul Harris

Mr Hartley met with AMP’s board on Thursday for a monthly meeting, although did not discuss the plan as staff redundancies do not require board approval.

One source, who declined to be named, said staff had been given little information about which teams would be affected by the restructure but many were aware terminations would begin in mid-June.

“Morale is at an all-time low as staff either wait for redundancies or are resigning in droves in disgust at the lack of changes in the company and additional work due to large restructures and no pay rises,” the source said.

An AMP spokesman said the group had communicated with staff about changes to the business since January, but Mr Hartley’s team was now “working through the details” which would “unfortunately” include redundancies in the levels below the executive leadership group.

“We are very conscious of the impact that this has on our people, these types of changes are always challenging for all of those involved and impacted – and we will provide our people with all the support they need through this change,” an AMP spokesman said. “We are working as quickly as possible to give our people certainty.”

The Finance Sector Union said it had not received any information from AMP about planned changes to employment contracts. “The last change notification from AMP was from April and it wasn’t big in terms of numbers of jobs,” FSU national secretary Julia Angrisano said.

AMP announced in April chief executive Francesco De Ferrari would resign from the company around July and be replaced by former ANZ deputy chief Alexis George.

Mr De Ferrari was midway through a three-year strategy to simplify AMP, but said the company had substantially changed since he joined in December 2018, with plans to now focus on domestic operations.

AMP launched a sale process in October last year, but only one interested party came forward – US investment firm Ares. However all negotiations ended more than six months later with no deals being signed. The group now plans to split up, spin-off and separately list its private markets business AMP Capital.

The restructure comes as the Australian Securities and Investments Commission launched legal action against AMP on Thursday, for continuing to charge dead customers for life insurance and financial advice after the practice was revealed in the banking royal commission.

AMP’s share price climbed by 8.45 per cent on Thursday to close at $1.16.

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