Tony Bellas steps down as Corporate Travel Management chairman, replaced by Ewen Crouch

Corporate Travel Management has appointed Ewen Crouch, a former Allens law firm chairman who now sits on the boards of Westpac and BlueScope Steel, as its new chairman.

Tony Bellas has stepped down from the board of Corporate Travel Management.

BAILING OUT

Why now?

Why did Brisbane bizoid Tony Bellas bail out as the long-serving chairman of Corporate Travel Management on Friday?

It certainly raised a few eyebrows since the dust has yet to settle on a brouhaha which erupted last week over a divorce-driven share transfer which saw his 82 per cent holding in the company vanish.

Despite that $4.5 million distraction over timely disclosure, CTM announced it had tapped as his replacement legal eagle Ewen Crouch, a former Allens law firm chairman who now sits on the boards of Westpac and BlueScope Steel.

Bellas retired at the AGM in October after a decade at the helm but was asked to stay on as CTM struggled to blunt a blistering assault from Sydney-based hedge fund mob VGI Partners, which had shorted the stock and harshly criticised the company’s accounts.

Tony Bellas

Bellas told City Beat yesterday that he always intended to stay on to stabilise the CTM and then leave after the half-year results came out.

TIES THAT BIND

It’s not terribly surprising that Crouch got the job. He and Bellas have known each other for more than 20 years and worked on the Suncorp-Metway-QIDC merger back in 1996.

Ewen Crouch

More recently, Crouch’s old firm Allens served as CTM’s corporate counsel. Indeed, the two entities are so close that Bellas is now dating a top gun in the Allens office in Brisbane!

Bellas won’t be lacking for work since he still chairs four companies, including Shine Lawyers. We can only imagine how that might put a crimp in the pillow talk!

Meanwhile, VGI boss Robert Luciano couldn’t help putting the boot in over Bellas’ exit. “This is yet another major red flag for a company that we believe has serious accounting issues,’’ he said yesterday.

Bellas shot back that the criticism “has already been discredited’’.

MINE FEUD

Controversial Queensland mining identity Denis Reinhardt is fuming.

He’s livid over the State Government’s seizure this month of his dormant Baal Gammon copper mine over just $5210 in unpaid council rates.

Reinhardt, who is appealing the cancellation of his leases, believes its part of a broader anti-mining agenda adopted by the government.

“We regard the seizure as an expropriation as the mine was on care and maintenance and we have been progressively working on bringing it into production whilst rehabilitation took place,’’ he told City Beat.

“We believe it’s part of a wider policy to remove mining from the Cairns hinterland.’’

Not surprisingly, a government spin doctor dismissed this claim as “ludicrous’’.

The mine, mothballed five years ago, has a history of environmental breaches under different owners and inspectors recently identified “a new seepage of contaminated water’’ draining into a creek.

But Reinhardt counters that these claims have been overblown and he says the mine has the potential to become a $100 million exporter of indium, a vital component in the production of touchscreens.

Reinhardt was paid $1.8 million to take control of the site two years ago by a former owner and he remains locked in mediation with the government over its demand to boost a $3.75 million bond to $6.8 million.

PIRATE PLOY

Angry investors in Brisbane’s deeply troubled Benjamin Hornigold fund managed to rustle up enough votes yesterday to call for a board spill.

They want to install investment manager Michael Glennon as a director, along with investors and financial planners Gary Miller and Jon Dixon, to the fund, which amazingly was named after an 18th century pirate who died in a shipwreck.

The rebels are ticked off that shares having been suspended from trading since last year as a string of deals with other entities in the pirate-themed investment empire of Stuart McAuliffe have come to light.

In case that wasn’t enough, a Sydney-based hedge fund is also trying to roll the board.