Shuffle at top of Suncorp

Suncorp is reshuffling its senior executive ranks in response to the departure of David Foster, the executive responsible for turning around its challenged banking division.

Mr Foster will leave Suncorp to pursue "other opportunities", the company said on Thursday, after it this year put one of its most turbulent periods behind it by selling a bundle of troubled commercial loans.

Filling Mr Foster's shoes as boss of the financial conglomerate's banking arm will be the current chief financial officer, John Nesbitt. The deputy finance chief, Steve Johnston, is being promoted to chief financial officer.

The change is the latest signal the company is seeking to move into a new phase, after it suffered a near-death experience during the global financial crisis and was forced to move about $18 billion of bad commercial loans into a "bad bank".

Earlier this year it finalised a plan to resolve the bad bank by selling $1.6 billion worth of loss-making loans and running down the rest, and Mr Foster said this signalled a suitable time for him to leave.

It is not clear what the next career move will be for Mr Foster, who is 45.

In its latest results, Suncorp's "non-core bank" that holds the bad commercial property loans made a $632 million loss, while earnings in the core bank were flat at $289 million.