Twice this month, our back page neighbour Chanticleer has laid out the febrile state of play at Brambles, where shareholder Perpetual is steadfastly against subsidiary CHEP building a $US700 million ($987 million) plastic pallet pool in the United States for major distributor Costco. A pilot is currently under way and Brambles will make a final investment decision by June 30.

Perpetual’s head of equities Paul Skamvougeras is pushing Brambles chairman John Mullen to jettison the investment, which Skamvougeras maintains will be dilutive to group returns. Perpetual owns 2.4 per cent of Brambles so is the largest investor after the US index giants.