January
Business lunch ‘must-go restaurant’ to close down after 35 years
Coco’s, which has hosted the likes of Alan Bond, Rene Rivkin and John Langford, will shut down after three-and-a-half decades, two resources super cycles and several busts.
November 2024
Chris Ellison’s luxury property on the market
The MinRes founder and wife Tia Ellison have turned to Alan Bond’s daughter to sell one of their Perth mansions.
October 2024
From Trump to Khuda: secrets of Australia’s most-connected director
Mark Barnaba has an uncanny ability to forge close personal relationships that turn into long-term and lucrative business opportunities.
June 2024
‘Stories were dropping out of trees’: The roaring ’90s
The choice of a new Chanticleer columnist is a tricky task, writes former Financial Review editor Colleen Ryan.
March 2024
Vale Charles Williams, corporate poacher turned gatekeeper
The influential regulator was born, raised and worked in the heart of the Melbourne business establishment but became a key oversight figure.
September 2023
This entrepreneur is cashing in on lithium – from Alan Bond’s old office
Robert Martin left school at 15 before making his money in mining services. Now he is chairman of a string of ASX-listed companies with projects in Canada.
The day young blokes from Down Under curdled the mood of America
How the America’s Cup race spectacularly sailed into Australia’s national psyche – and my life – 40 years ago.
September 2022
Why lessons from America’s Cup win still matter
Australia II became the pride of the nation when skipper John Bertrand and his crew won the America’s Cup in 1983. Bertrand is still passing on the lessons that come from losing – and coming back to win.
May 2022
Brookfield selling former Bond lair with $350m aspirations
Built by businessman Alan Bond, the tower at 108 St Georges Terrace is set to get a new owner with foreign capital favoured to take out the office asset.
February 2022
The death threats and secret meetings behind battle to control Fairfax
The media landscape was transformed in the 1990s as moguls reigned supreme and a nasty takeover battle for Fairfax played out.
‘Don’t have state banks’, says man who witnessed black day for SA
John Malouf, chief executive of the finance company arm of the State Bank of South Australia, had a ringside seat at its $3.1 billion collapse in 1992.
January 2022
The 1980s: ‘When things actually happened’
It was the transformative decade: radical economic reform, takeover splurges, spectacular busts, the rapid acceleration of Australia’s Asian engagement, and emergence of more companies ready to take on the world.
Why Australia’s best companies were built in the 1980s
Some mark the ’80s as the era of the corporate cowboys, but it also heralded the arrival of Australia’s most successful global finance house, major hi-tech success stories, and ‘ocker’ advertising.
How the takeover king of the 1980s came undone
John Spalvins controlled the biggest industrial group in Australia at the end of the decade but it all came crashing down.
When Ronald Reagan met Alan Bond in the White House
AFR Classic | In September 1983, Glenda Korporaal captured Alan Bond’s meeting with Ronald Reagan. The article’s headline read: The short fat guy from Perth in a friendly chat with Ron.
September 2021
The 1950s: when Australia was a developing economy
The Australian Financial Review looks back at the decade that opened Australia up to foreign capital, European migrants and even the possibility of joining the Atomic age.
April 2021
Records fall as millions spent on paintings, diamond
Three million-dollar paintings, six new auction records and Australia’s first million-dollar diamond were all realised in Sydney on Tuesday night.
December 2020
Top director tells: Packer, Bond tried to bribe me
A businessman at the centre of some of the biggest media deals of the 1980s reveals for the first time Kerry Packer and Alan Bond tried to bribe him to recommend corporate deals.
November 2020
Rivals pour cold water on Telstra's NBN aspirations
A sale of the NBN is not likely any time soon, but industry arguments about its future ownership have begun, with Optus saying Telstra must be ruled out already.
The love of Bunny's life now top lot for Smith & Singer
Rupert Bunny’s portrait of his French muse could set a new record for the artist at a $10 million-plus sale. Hopefully it will avoid the fiery end of its predecessor.