The Wagners industrial group has won a $40m contract to supply Brisbane’s Cross River Rail project

John Wagner and his Wagners construction materials group have just got a nice little stocking stuffer in the lead up to Christmas

JOHN Wagner and his Wagners construction materials group have just got a nice little stocking stuffer in the lead up to Christmas.

Emerging victorious in a competitive tender process, the Toowoomba-based outfit revealed yesterday that it had snared the contract to supply a good deal of the concrete for Brisbane’s Cross River Rail project.

The deal, expected to be worth about $40 million over a nine-month period starting late next year, will see Wagners manufacture all the precast concrete tunnel segments for the new 10.2km rail line stretching from Dutton Park to Bowen Hills.

The parts will be made at the company’s facility at Wacol and then deployed in the rail line’s 5.9km of twin tunnels beneath the Brisbane River and CBD.

John Wagner

Unlike Wagners’ announcement last month that it had won a $35 million quarry operation and haulage contract for Adani’s deeply polarising Carmichael thermal coal project, the rail win is unlikely to spark any blowback from greenie protesters.

But other challenges remain.

The company, which saw its net profit fall about 40 per cent to $13.5 million last financial year, remains locked in a legal dispute with Boral and has acknowledged tough trading conditions.

An entitlement offer to raise $40 million fell short last month despite the Wagner family ponying up $22 million of that amount. It managed to attract $37.4 million, with the shortfall picked up by Morgans and their sub-underwriter.

ABRUPT EXIT

CITY Beat spies report that it’s not all sweetness and light right now in the senior ranks of the North Queensland Bulk Ports Corporation.

We hear chief financial officer Bernie Wilson has resigned suddenly after nearly nine years on the job, citing personal reasons and giving just a week’s notice.

Wilson, who formerly worked at Queensland Treasury Corporation, Queensland Rail and Brisbane City Council, did not return a call seeking comment yesterday. A ports spin doctor could shed no light on his abrupt exit.

The Abbot Point coal export terminal

The NQBPC is a government-owned corporation which oversees some of the state’s most vital port operations at Abbot and Hay points, as well as Mackay and Weipa.

It delivered a 200 per cent spike in net profit last year to $15.8 million in the last financial year, with $40 billion worth of goods passing through the ports.

BIG BUCKS

THE gang at Brisbane-based EML Payments have, as they say, put their money where their mouth is.

A bunch of the top guns at the fast-growing payments technology firm have shelled out the big bucks this month to take part in a retail rights issue, part of a capital raising that has brought in a whopping $250 million to fund a major acquisition.

David Liddy

Managing director Tom Cregan parted with $5.18 million, former Bank of Queensland boss David Liddy coughed up $568,000 and chairman Peter Martin shelled out $226, 415 to lift their already substantial stakes in the business.

With its share price more than doubling, EML has had a cracking year, highlighted by last month’s deal to buy an Irish financial tech firm for $423 million. Net profit last year nearly quadrupled to $8.4 million.

SMILING KIDS

AS sure as Christmas rolls around each year, Stefan Ackerie is handing out toys to sick kids.

For the 20th year in a row, the Brisbane hairdressing legend yesterday presided over this year’s launch of an effort that will see every child in every public hospital across the state get a toy for the holidays. That’s more than 5500 teddy bears, dolls and the like.

After breakfast and a few speeches at JoJo’s restaurant, Stefan and his entourage were accompanied by plenty of police on motorcycle (and Santa in a Jeep, of course) to Queensland Children’s Hospital, where they brightened up the lives of some of the patients.

His MASKS Foundation (Make A Sick Kid Smile) also donated $2500 to the Lord Mayor’s Charitable Trust Gift Fund.