Corporate Travel Management attracts new investor

A SYDNEY investment firm has become a substantial shareholder in Corporate Travel Management, taking advantage of a share price rout to top up its stake.

Corporate Travel Management chief executive Jamie Pherous. Picture: Liam Kidston.

ON BOARD

SYDNEY-BASED investment firm Bennelong Funds Management has popped up as a substantial shareholder in Jamie Pherous’ troubled Corporate Travel Management (CTM).

Bennelong has been busy buying more than 2.2 million shares in CTM over the last four months, all the way from a peak of $33.23 in July to a low of $21.27 last week.

They now hold a total of 5.73 million shares in the company, valued at $125 million based on Monday’s closing price of $21.84. Bennelong, whose board includes former Qantas executive Gary Toomey, also have stakes in BHP and CSL.

CTM shares have been on a roller coaster ride since short-seller VGI Partners last month issued a report raising a series of “red flags” about its financial performance. Bennelong itself hasn’t been a top performer recently, with its Australian equities fund down 11.3 per cent in the past three months. Time will tell whether its investment in CTM will pay off.

BARNES’ STORMING

STILL on Corporate Travel Management and your diarist has been sent a short video of Pherous’ 50th birthday bash on Hamilton Island featuring rocker Jimmy Barnes.

The clip sent to us by a spy who attended the party at the six-star Qualia Resort shows Barnes knocking out his hit Working Class Man to the delight of the crowd, whose closest association with the toiling masses would probably be interviewing au pairs to look after the kids on the next ski holiday.

Far be it from City Beat to question the musical tastes of Pherous, an old Brisbane Grammar boy who remains one of the state’s richest men, but is Working Class Man really his anthem of choice?

WORKERS’ CLUB NEWS

STILL on the struggles of the proletariat and we hear a hard-line faction at Tattersalls, aka the Queen Street Workers Club, is fighting a rear guard action against allowing women members into the club’s hallowed halls.

But as Lenin once said “history sometimes needs a push” and that appears to have come in the form of a recent survey that showed 57 per cent of members do indeed favour women being allowed to join as full members. Of course, club president Stuart Fraser still has his work cut out for him to push through this reform, including running a full membership ballot foreshadowing a change to the club’s constitution. But has the worm finally turned?

Membership at the club is ageing, with half of all members now over 60, while membership has slumped by more than 700 over the past decade.

A new generation, including those with two X chromosomes, is obviously needed to freshen things up.

But at City Beat we will never underestimate the passion of some at the worker’s club to keep things very much in keep with the 19th century vibe of the place.

Our spies tell us there was a big hullaballoo recently when the chef changed the recipe of the pea and ham soup served in the dining room. The old recipe was quickly reinstated much to the relief of the old soup-slurping duffers.

There also has been a push back against trialling new contemporary style crockery that didn’t feature the hokey club logo.

BEEF ABOUT CAR PARK

OUR spies tell us the new multi-storey car park at the Ekka Grounds hasn’t got off to a good start. The automatic gates at the car park, which is used as the cattle and livestock pavilion during the Ekka, failed recently requiring a man in an orange vest having to be on hand to take the money as cars were exiting. A bit like herding cattle we suppose.