Brisbane PR operative Lyall Mercer tips his company into liquidation, ending a controversial 10-year run
It’s the end of an era for one of Brisbane’s more controversial spin doctors, who has just tipped his solely-owned entity into liquidation.
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END OF AN ERA
It’s the end of an era for one of Brisbane’s more controversial spin doctors.
Lyall Mercer has just tipped his solely-owned entity Lone Oak Investments Pty Ltd into liquidation.
The company, which traded variously as Mercer PR and Crisis Communications Australia, provided advice over the years to the likes of the LNP, the government of Nauru, the Hillsong Church and the Queensland Taxi Council.
It’s now getting wound up by SMB Advisory operative Alice Ruhe, who did not return a call seeking comment on Monday.
In a triumph of understatement, Mercer told us that 2020 had proved to be “a difficult year’’ for the business, which had outposts in both Toowoomba and Sydney.
“The COVID pandemic has prevented travel, which generated a significant percentage of our revenue,’’ the former journo said.
“This was exacerbated by pressures from personal issues unrelated to the business, therefore the decision was made to close after more than 10 years.
“I ensured that suppliers and employees were fully paid and no clients or contractors were adversely affected. I plan to continue to be involved in the corporate PR industry into the future.’’
MR FIX-IT
Back in happier days, Mercer held himself out as a specialist in “reputation management,’’ a Mr Fix-It for clients going through some kind of image-shredding drama.
So it seemed fairly ironic that Mercer himself managed to raise a few eyebrows himself thanks to some of his own actions over the years.
Among his clients was the government of Nauru, which used his services last year for the national airline before turfing out the entire board over allegations of inept management.
His work for the tiny island nation, which doubles as a kind of purgatory for asylum seekers, pre-dated that unhappy interlude though.
Mercer managed to spark outrage back in 2015 when he provided journalists with a police report which included the name of a Somali refugee who alleged she had been raped. Also included were details of her vaginal examination.
Mercer copped a ton of grief about privacy concerns but Nauru authorities defended his move and said a police probe concluded there had been no rape at the detention centre bankrolled by Aussie taxpayers.
Three years earlier, he provoked howls of outrage after brokering an interview between Channel Nine and the wife of convicted killer Max Sica, who is spending 35 years behind bars for the murder of three children in 2003.
Mercer had reportedly asked media outlets to pay him $50,000 to set up an interview with Sica’s wife, Shiv, who claimed he was innocent, and eventually negotiated a deal with A Current Affair.
The paid deal angered victims of crime, who labelled the transaction ``disgusting‘’.
Mercer also shopped around an interview with a Frenchman who admitted to posing as a fake prince on Hamilton Island and scamming the locals out of $42,000 back in 2009.
The bloke later wrote a book describing how he posed as a member of the Saudi royal family while living a life of luxury in the tropical paradise for 16 days.