KUALA LUMPUR (March 8): The last five years have seen CIMB Group Holdings Bhd (KL:CIMB) working diligently to improve its return on equity (ROE) — a key measure of profitability — and other important financial metrics that had fallen behind those of its rivals.

This turnaround work, crafted under its Forward23+ strategic plan that concluded last year, seems to have paid off for the country’s second, and Asean’s fifth, largest banking group by assets.

Its ROE, which had sunk to a low of 2.1% in 2020 — the first year of the pandemic — has risen markedly over the years, reaching 11.2% in 2024, among the highest in the industry and within its targeted range of 11% to 11.5%.

Notably, its net profit rose to a record high of RM7.73 billion for the financial year ended Dec 31, 2024 (FY2024) — up 10.7% year-on-year — and it declared its highest ever annual dividend of 47 sen a share that year, which included a special dividend of seven sen a share for the second straight year.

Now that it is back on a stronger footing, CIMB wants to accelerate its growth, group chief executive officer Novan Amirudin says in an exclusive interview with The Edge. This ambition is encapsulated in its new six-year roadmap called Forward30, which it unveiled on March 5.

Novan says CIMB is open to undertaking mergers and acquisitions (M&A) to grow, if a good opportunity arises and it brings value to the group.

In the two-hour interview, he talks about the Forward30 plans and also about the prospects and challenges in Indonesia, where CIMB aims to spin off the Islamic banking business of its subsidiary Bank CIMB Niaga.

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