NAB chief keen on lender’s steady turnaround

NAB optimistic that he can make each quarter better than the last as timing of the turnaround is not under the bank’s control.

Cameron Clyne is banking on a compressed turnaround of National Australia Bank, to be delivered less than five years from his start as chief executive in January 2009.

Mr Clyne, who revealed that NAB's then share price of $20.40 was written at the top of every page in his diary, said the turnaround was clearly under way, with each quarterly result better than the one before. The bank's shares are now trading at $26.

"In many respects, timing (of the turnaround) is not under my control, so we have to just keep making each quarter better than the last," he said in an exclusive interview with The Australian. "But we'd hope to see a response, certainly before five years."

NAB has long been the under-achiever of the four major banks, even under Mr Clyne's two-year stewardship that began in the depths of the global financial crisis.

NAB's total shareholder return -- share price growth plus dividends -- over that period has been 40.3 per cent, well below Westpac on 56.3 per cent, ANZ at 76 per cent and the ascendant Commonwealth Bank at 112 per cent.

View the full story in The Australian.