KUALA LUMPUR (Jan 20): If there was one thing Kevin Lam was sure of when he took the helm as Hong Leong Bank Bhd's (HLBB) group managing director and chief executive officer just over six months ago, it was that he had not been hired to do a business-as-usual (BAU) job.

In an exclusive interview with The Edge, the veteran Singaporean banker reveals that in one of his earliest meetings with HLBB chairman and key shareholder Tan Sri Quek Leng Chan, the tycoon made it clear that he expects transformative growth at the country’s fifth-largest banking group by assets.

“He said, ‘You’re not hired to do a BAU job.’ His expectation is [that of a] transformation,” Lam shares in a two-hour interview at the bank’s headquarters in Kuala Lumpur, his first with the media since joining.

Early last month, Lam and his team finally unveiled what they call a “transformative” three- to five-year plan to the market, under which HLBB aspires to become the best-run bank in the country by various financial metrics, a key one being the return on equity (ROE).

He says the bank’s internal target is to achieve an ROE of 13% (versus its official target of “more than 12.5%”) by as early as the financial year ending June 30, 2026 (FY2026) — the third year of the plan — compared with 11.75% in FY2023. It currently ranks second only to Public Bank in terms of ROE.

In the interview, Lam also addresses investor concerns about China’s slowing economy and property market crisis, moving to assure that HLBB's associate company there — Bank of Chengdu Co Ltd (BOCD), in which it has a 19.8% stake — has no exposure to any of the distressed property developers.

Nevertheless, BOCD’s strong growth over the years and its solid contribution to HLBB’s bottom line, while positive for the group, also pose a challenge for Lam. “My issue is, if it is growing so fast, the rest of my business cannot keep up with it,” he says.

Get the full story in this week’s issue of The Edge Malaysia.

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