Off the Record: Swans chief makes mark
OFF The Record this week reveals the Sydney Swans boss’s $5 million “atonement” after poaching Kurt Tippett from the Crows and how boxer Danny Green wasn’t so tough as a kid in Adelaide.
OFF The Record this week reveals the Sydney Swans boss’s $5 million “atonement” after poaching Kurt Tippett from the Crows and how boxer Danny Green wasn’t so tough as a kid in Adelaide.
SWANS CHIEF MAKES MARK
HE’S the high-flying banker who’s better known as the Sydney Swans chairman whose club paid top dollar to lure Kurt Tippett from the Adelaide Crows.
Now Adelaide boy made good Andrew Pridham is atoning for the football raid on his home state by pumping $5 million into UniSA’s Great Hall development on Hindley St, to be officially named Pridham Hall.
The gift from his family’s Pridham Foundation is the largest private donation UniSA has received in its 25-year history.
Pridham grew up in Adelaide and graduated in the late 1980s with a property degree from the South Australian Institute of Technology, which was soon to become UniSA.
He immediately moved to the east coast and is now CEO of investment bank Moelis & Company Australia.
Pridham says the family is proudly South Australian – hisforebears arrived here in 1849.
“Although there were not any universities at (that) time there were also no Adelaide Crows or Port Power – life was good!” he jokes in an advance copy of the speech, seen by Off The Record, which he will deliver today at UniSA.
“I was raised on a diet rich in Woodies lemonade, Ditters nuts, Haigh’s chocolates, Balfours pies, SANFL footy and exotic vacations at Victor Harbor. I believe you should never forget where you came from.”
Premier Jay Weatherill will today announce the State Government will add $1 million to the Pridham donation to create two types of perpetual UniSA scholarships. One will be for elite athletes and the other for Aboriginal students, called the Goodes O’Loughlin UniSA GO Scholarship, honouring the charitable works of SA – and Swans – footy greats Adam Goodes and Michael O’Loughlin.
Pridham says the family usually donates anonymously but made the “difficult” decision to have the building named after them in the hope of inspiring others into philanthropy.
DON’T CALL THIS DANNY BOY A SOFTIE
HE’S going to wage one of the most violent battles ever seen on Adelaide Oval’s turf, but four-time boxing world champion Danny Greenonce cowered at the prospect of a junior footy game at Darlington.
Green, who spent six years of his childhood at Colonel Light Gardens and left when he was eight, told Off the Record how he hid in a car rather than hit the footy field.
“I remember waking up early in the morning to play footy and it was just fog. It was so cold. I think we were playing at Darlington – I remember the hill,” Green said.
“We couldn’t even see, there was so much fog. I’ve gone in the car and, back in the day, it was like 1979, I was five years old.
“The keys were in the car. I went and turned the car on, turned the heater on and sat in the car. The old man finally went: ‘Hey, we’re one player short. Where is he?’ I was in the car.”
It’s a far cry from his hotly anticipated February 3 superfight with Anthony Mundineat the Oval, which was revealed exclusively this week by The Advertiser. Mundine played rugby league for St George against Western Suburbs at the Oval in 1994.
Green’s family relocated from Perth when his father, who worked as a manager for Hungry Jack’s, was posted to Adelaide.
SPLIT FROM LAWYERS
THE Adelaide woman at the centre of Australia’s most expensive – and possibly longest-running – divorce has dealt with more than her fair share of lawyers.
Now she has asked the Supreme Court to postpone the latest chapter of her 12-year legal fight – so she can find a solicitor who “tells the truth”.
Since 2005, the woman and her former husband have spent more than $40 million on fees.
She has successfully sued solicitors who acted for her, claiming they’d issued “unfair and unreasonable” bills for $4.12 million for their work.
Her latest claim is against Winter & Co, based in Frankston, Victoria, which she says drained a $1.6 million trust fund and left her with just $5.25 to battle her ex-husband.
In a Supreme Court affidavit seen by Off The Record, the woman – who can’t be identified – asks that her case be temporarily postponed. She says she can’t pursue Winter & Co until she swaps her current Adelaide team for a brand new one.
“I’m embarrassed by my present circumstances ... I think there’s a perception that I’m a difficult client,” she tells the court.
“I don’t look to be a lawyer or a powerful litigant ... I’ve paid lawyers a lot of money to do their task.
“I need to make arrangements for a new lawyer and hope, this time, I will get one who tells me the truth.”
MUSICAL CHAIRS
THEY say change is as good as a holiday – and a Burnside councillor unhappy with his seat in the council chamber is hoping for just that.
Cr Lance Bagsteris demanding Mayor David Parkinallow him to change where he sits during council meetings, saying his allocated spot is “overly cold and it is always in the way of pedestrians”.
Neighbouring Campbelltown Council has avoided such squabbles by councillors picking a number from a hat before meetings to decide seats.
HOOKING UP
REFUGEES from the public service joined sacked infrastructure and transport tsar Rod Hook in a big bash last night to open his consultancy’s new city offices.
Hook – who was sensationally fired by Premier Jay Weatherillin May 2014 – was joined by fellow former executives and now fellow consultants Luigi Rossiand Lino di Lernia.
But the most notable inclusion on the guest list was Treasurer Tom Koutsantonis, along with former Cabinet colleague and Hook’s former boss Patrick Conlon.
NAME FIGHT
ADELAIDE’S big-name food fight involving CIBO Espresso’s owners and founders is, ironically, centred on the rights to a name.
The national coffee chain’s owners, who include Boost Juice founder and Shark Tank star Janine Allis, are taking Federal Court action against the former owners and founders, including Roberto Cardone andSalvatore Pepe.
We can reveal the dispute is over rights to the Cibo Cucina and Cucina Cibo trademarks, being used by the former owners in their food supply business — the exclusive supplier to CIBO Espresso stores. Allis and the other current owners want them to stop using those names. The action continues.
AIRBRUSHED
HE was sacked as the Northern Territory’s corrections minister amid the furore over “torture” of teenage prisoners at the Don Dale detention centre.
Now John Elferink is hanging out his shingle in Adelaide’s inner suburbs, one of three practitioners at the “small and classic legal practice” College Park Law.
But a flyer dropped in College Park letterboxes does not mention the scandal, describing Elferink only as a former NT attorney-general.