WBC - Westpac

[Snoopy]

Note that the common thread amongst all of these court cases is that no specific provision has been made for any of them! This is not because Westpac believes they have no chance of succeeding. <snip> It is because estimating any consequent losses is too difficult.

I wonder if, nevertheless, the recent capital raising was an attempt to provide some provisioning against all of this, albeit in an as yet unformalised and unallocated way?

I have done a bit more homework on this topic.

From AR2019 p84, the 'non-interest income' decrease year on year is explained.

There was a "$657 million decrease from provisions for estimated customer refunds , payments, associated costs and litigation."

So although there is no specific provision for the avalanche of court cases pending against Westpac, there is $657m available already to make litigation related payments.

Specifically for Wealth Management and Insurance we learn that a separate $531m has been set aside as

"...additional provisions for estimated customer refunds, payments , associated costs, and litigation (mostly related to financial planning)."

That all adds up to a reduction in non interest income for FY2019 of:

$657m + $531m = $1,188m

Separate to all of this, there has been much scrutiny of the payment of senior managers including the CEO. From AR2019 p56:

"Cash earnings were also impacted by provisions for estimated customer refunds, payments associated costs and litigation, as well as costs associated with the restructuring of the Wealth business. Excluding the impact of these items Westpac's cash earnings were $7,979m."

From AR2019 p2 the declared cash earnings for FY2019 were $6,849m. The difference in these two figures indicates the one off provisioning against the now largely discontinued wealth business.

$7,979m - $6,849m = $1,130m

This is $58m less than the total restructuring costs I calculated above. My explanation for this discrepancy is that, of the $531m set aside against 'Wealth Management and Insurance', $58m must have been for the continuing 'Insurance' side of 'Wealth Management and Insurance'.

It may end up not being enough. But $657m + $473m = $1.130 billion set aside over the last financial year to address these remediation and litigation issues is a significant start. More detailed information of how that $1,130m was accounted for over FY2019 may be found in AR2019 p95.

SNOOPY