Financial expert Noel Whittaker warns how his $175K Tesla reversed itself into a wall
A veteran money expert returned from a shopping outing with an $8000 repair bill for his Tesla - and a warning for anyone else who drives one of the pricey cars.
City Beat
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You might call it a futuristic prang.
Brisbane financial planning guru Noel Whittaker digs the $175,000 Tesla he acquired last year but the self-parking function leaves a lot to be desired.
As he was backing into a car park at the Gasworks shopping centre in Newstead last weekend, Whittaker got a prompt to activate “auto park’’.
“I accepted by hitting the button. To my horror it backed itself straight into the brick wall behind, doing $8000 worth of damage,’’ he told City Beat.
“I figured this was Tesla’s fault but, sadly, their policy is if you have the car in auto drive or auto park it is all the driver’s sole responsibility.
“I think it’s a warning to anybody considering purchasing a self-drive vehicle!’’
REVOLTING
Brisbane legal eagle Warwick Sauer is spearheading the latest shareholder revolt targeting Excelsior Capital, previously known as CMI Limited.
Sauer, who acts as Asia Pacific general counsel at commercial leasing mob JLL, has rustled up four other disgruntled investors with enough voting power to convene an EGM.
Together, they control 1.6m shares in Excelsior, or about 5.5 per cent of the stock on issue.
In a blistering letter sent to the company late last week, the rebel investors are demanding that the company sell its “CMI Operations’’ business which has long specialised in the manufacturing of electrical cables for 4WD vehicles and various industrial applications.
They estimate its worth between $50m and $70m but allege shareholders can’t extract that value because of “serious concerns’’ about how Excelsior has been run.
The company, which launched in 1991 and changed its name in 2018, is headed by Leanne Catelan, daughter of the late Queensland Rich Lister Ray Catelan, who controlled the firm back in the day when it was based in Brisbane.
Catelan, who just pocketed a whopping $35m from the sale of a Potts Point mansion in Sydney late last year, did not return calls seeking comment.
In a statement to the ASX on Tuesday, Excelsior acknowledged receipt of the rebels’ letter but did not address the substance of the allegations (more on that below).
It’s not the first time that investors have directed their fury at Excelsior, which posted a $4.1m net profit based on nearly $60m in revenue in 2019.
Back in 2011, Troy Harry and his Brisbane outfit Trojan Equity made an ill-fated bid with 23 other investors to wind up CMI, as it was then known with Ray Catelan at the helm.
They were livid about a lack of dividend payments, board decisions, corporate governance issues and a dust-up with the Takeovers Panel.
REVOLVING DOOR
Fast forward to today, and the complaints outlined by Sauer and his offsiders are remarkably similar to past grievances about how the company operated.
They are deeply unhappy that the board has turned into a revolving door over the past decade, with plenty of directors serving just a few months before stepping down.
Among them was disgraced Brisbane bizoid Colin Ryan, who plead guilty to three criminal charges levelled by NZ’s Financial Markets Authority in 2013. The case, which was unrelated to CMI, saw him serve seven months of home detention after he admitted to signing off on untrue statements in two prospectuses.
These critics also claim that the share price, which closed at $1.35 on Tuesday, has massively underperformed. They say the electrical business alone is worth $1.75 to $2.40 per share, with Excelsior’s investment portfolio valued at another 65 cents or so per share.
At the same time there is deep unhappiness about the creation of a $20m investment portfolio in 2016.
Despite more than 80 per cent of investors opposing this move, interests controlled by Leanne Catelan ensured it went ahead. To make matters worse, the fund has performed terribly.
In case all this wasn’t enough, the rebels complain that Excelsior has resisted efforts, including in the courts, to fix its capital structure.