CIMB set to appoint former Securities Commission chief Syed Zaid as chairman: sources
Citing sources, the report said the appointment, which is pending regulatory approval, comes as incumbent chairman Mohd Nasir Ahmad prepares to step down after nearly a decade on the board and six years as chairman.
Syed Zaid, who led the Securities Commission from 2018 to 2022, is also a founding partner of law firm Albar & Partners.
His return to the financial sector comes at a time when CIMB is navigating a more challenging macroeconomic environment across South-east Asia, where it has significant operations in Indonesia, Thailand, Singapore, and Cambodia.
The anticipated change in chairmanship follows the group's steady financial performance in the first quarter of 2025.
CIMB posted a net profit of RM2 billion, a 1.9 per cent increase from nearly RM2 billion a year earlier, supported by stronger net interest income (NII).
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However, revenue fell 2.3 per cent year-on-year to RM5.5 billion, largely due to continued pressure on net interest margins (NIM), though asset growth helped cushion the impact.
NII rose slightly to RM3.82 billion on both a quarterly and annual basis. Non-interest income (NOII) climbed 11.1 per cent quarter-on-quarter, supported by a nearly 19 per cent rise in treasury client sales and a 12.6 per cent increase in fee and commission income.
In a filing with Bursa Malaysia, CIMB reaffirmed its commitment to its Forward30 strategic plan that was launched in March. This six-year roadmap focuses on strengthening customer experience, improving operational efficiency, and driving sustainability-led initiatives.
The group also recently restructured its leadership in Thailand and Cambodia, while identifying those two markets, along with Singapore, as growth engines for regional expansion.
Being South-east Asia's fifth-largest lender by assets, CIMB operates 592 retail branches and employs more than 33,000 staff across 10 markets as at end-2024, serving around 28 million customers.
Analysts said CIMB's latest results were broadly in line with expectations, though margin compression remains a concern.
Kenanga Research's Clement Chua noted that CIMB, alongside AmBank, was one of the few banks in Malaysia to post a sequential uptick in NIMs. However, gains were offset by declining asset yields and elevated funding costs in Indonesia.
While the group maintained its full-year NIM guidance of a deterioration of up to five basis points, analysts said it is now more likely to trend toward the lower end of that range, added Chua.
Maybank Investment Bank analyst Desmond Ch'ng said CIMB's wide footprint in South-east Asia exposes it to greater regional volatility compared to more domestically focused peers.
'Any slowdown in Malaysia would weigh on earnings, but the group is also vulnerable to monetary and currency trends in Indonesia and Thailand,' he said, noting that further rate cuts in Indonesia or a weaker rupiah could erode margins and reduce the translated earnings from CIMB Niaga.
Despite these challenges, RHB Research analysts David Chong and Nabil Thoo said CIMB is entering this phase of uncertainty with a strong liquidity position, better asset quality, and flexibility to manage funding pressures.
They pointed to CIMB's ability to reduce campaign deposit rates in Malaysia by 10 to 20 basis points in May and its strategy to wind down costlier wholesale funding.
'Direct exposure to US tariffs is limited, with less than 3 per cent of CIMB's loans linked to trade-related sectors and just 0.4 per cent of customers deriving over 20 per cent of their revenue from the US market,' they said in a note on Monday (Jun 3).
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Straits Times
23-07-2025
- Straits Times
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Business Times
23-07-2025
- Business Times
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Straits Times
22-07-2025
- Straits Times
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And this is an area that CIMB has been extremely active in and forms a critical part of our Forward30 plan to increase our proportion of income that comes from non-interest income.' Forward30 is a six-year road map launched in March to accelerate growth and future-proof the organisation. 'So despite a potential decline in interest income, an increase in non-interest income could mitigate some of that.' The bank has further taken steps to strengthen its financial position, such as reducing its risk profile and credit losses, said Mr Amirudin. 'We have reconstituted our portfolio over the last few years. We've exited businesses that were very hard to operate. We've reduced our risk profile, we've reduced our credit losses, we've increased our coverage ratio.' 'We are in a good place and that would be one more area that can help the financial statement,' he said. In the first quarter, CIMB reported a low proportion of loans at risk, with less than 3 per cent of its total loan book tied to trade and limited direct exposure to the US market, with less than 0.4 per cent of its customers deriving more than 20 per cent of their revenue from the US.
