Michael Chaney, the 54-year-old CEO of Australian conglomerate Wesfarmers, is stepping down in July 2005, and he's already put together a list of retirement projects:
- Relax at his vacation home south of Perth in the lush Margaret River wine region, across the continent from bustling Melbourne
- Build a woodworking shop out back for his consuming hobby
- Handcraft some chairs, maybe a conference table or two
- Provide a steadying hand for wobbly National Australia Bank.
The Melbourne bank has proved alarmingly accident-prone. In 2001 it had to take a $A3 billion write-down on its Florida mortgage operation as a result of interest rate miscalculations. Then in January it came out that the bank had lost A$360 million betting that the Australian dollar would fall. That embarrassing setback cost the bank's chairman and CEO their jobs. Now the current chairman, Graham Kraehe, and the CEO, John Stewart, who had run the bank's European business, are working to get NAB back on track.
With any luck, by the time Chaney replaces the 62-year-old Kraehe, the bank will be doing fine. This would suit him to a T square, as it would dovetail with his woodworking plans: Chaney is determined to set aside a few hours each week to spend in his shop. His time with a chisel and saw, he says, "is one of the few occasions when I am alone. It gives me a chance to think."
He intends to telecommute via videoconferencing between Perth and the bank's headquarters at least part of the month. "NAB will bring me to Melbourne a lot," he says, "but hopefully during my retirement I will occasionally get to use the new workshop."
Chaney's first big project in wood was building bed frames for his beach house on Eagle Bay. Over the past decade he has constructed conference tables for the law school at Perth's University of Notre Dame and an altar for Christ Church in the Perth suburb of Claremont, where he and his family live. Perhaps he should get to work on a doghouse for NAB's forex officials.
