Business Confidential: Property, development, business news and gossip

THE rumour mill is abuzz that Justin Bieber will headline an annual international gathering hosted by one of Queensland’s biggest companies.

WHAT goes on behind the closed doors of Queensland’s biggest board rooms? Our insiders are here to spill the beans on all that’s happening in the world of business and property.

GUESS WHO

IT’S the biggest secret in the business world at the moment - which celeb is going to melt minds at Flight Centre’s annual Global Gathering?

The Queensland company is keeping a tight lid on who the star act will be this year after party-goers drooled over Jason Derulo last year and snapped up advice from Gwyneth Paltrow the year before.

A Flight Centre insider told The Courier-Mail “only a handful of people know” and “no one knows the identity of the acts, the key speakers or the venue for next year.”

Flight Centre’s Jonathan Brown sits at the bottom of the internal slide in the Flight Centre HQ on Grey St in South Brisbane. Picture: Claudia Baxter

The rumour mill has already been buzzing that it could be none other than Justin Bieber while others are speculating it could be someone from the host location of Hawaii.

Last year’s global gathering was held at Singapore’s Marina Bay Sands hotel with a “Fast and Furious” theme which saw acts such as Basement Jaxx, Peking Duck and Fatboy Slim perform and Hamish and Andy MC during the awards ball.

ON THE MOVE

SEASONED property professional Ken Lucht has left Shaun Douglas’ Chesterton International

Ken Lucht is now managing director of CI Brisbane. Picture: Philip Norrish

and has set up CI Brisbane as its managing director.

For those not acquainted with the history, Sydney-based CI Australia was previously Chesterton International and was linked with Shaun’s outfit at 100 Wharf St in the city.

In 2012 the NSW business was bought by APP Corporation, a subsidiary of Transfield Services real estate arm, which changed its name to Broadspectrum and last year was taken over by Spanish infrastructure giant Ferrovial.

In the meantime Chesterton International in NSW rebranded itself as CI Australia which has built a strong business in its home state and Victoria in investment sales, property leasing and asset management.

The word is they have wanted a presence in Queensland for some time and have talked extensively to the local Chesties but there was no deal.

We don’t know how many Chesties staff have left with Ken but we do know Jim Wicks and Warren Jopson and Ben Sikalas have stayed.

GET TRAVELLING

QUEENSLANDERS have dominated the annual roll-call of new JLL regional directors covering the Asia Pacific region.

Of the six new regional directors four hail from Queensland and they will be racking up a lot more frequent flyer points.

The fabulous four are Adam Barrett (Leasing); Andrew Clowes (Information & Technology); Andrew Read (Project and Development Services); and Warwick Sauer (Legal).

NIGHT OF NIGHTS

PIZZA chain Domino’s are pulling out all the stops for tonight’s State of Origin.

With the decider set to be one of the biggest TV nights of the year, Domino’s stores across Queensland and New South Wales have rostered on all available staff.

The company said they were expecting to serve more than 330,000 pizzas – about double the standard Wednesday night.

Domino’s Australia and New Zealand CEO Nick Knight with every store had ordered extra ingredients to keep up with the expected demand.

“These match nights can be bigger than any Grand Final …. every person wants their meal to be delivered in a precise window around kick-off, or up to half-time,” Mr Knight said.