Winners are sinners in Barefoot Investor’s Fogey Awards

GOOD evening and welcome to the Fogey Awards for 2015, the annual awards celebrating the characters who’ve managed to put a bit of showbiz into the world of investing, writes BAREFOOT INVESTOR.

Lambie

GOOD evening ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to the Fogey Awards for 2015 — the 11th edition of the annual awards celebrating the characters who’ve managed to put a bit of showbiz into the all-too-often sensible world of investing.

For the uninitiated, the Fogeys were born partly out of television’s night of nights, the Logies, and partly out of superannuation, which looks after old fogeys (and us financial types) to the tune of $80 million a day.

But before we hand out the eagerly anticipated awards, we need to cover the formalities:

The toilets are located up the back and to the right — just next to Tony and Margie Abbott’s table.

I’d also like to thank our official advertising partner, Volkswagen, who’ve put on a brave face this year despite their challenges (though they’re secretly fuming on the inside).

And our after dinner speaker tonight will be the Wolf of Wall Street, Jordan Belfort. Belfort’s bio bills him as a “lying thief, convicted fraudster, self-confessed wifebeater, and … one of the best motivational speakers on the planet”.

And tonight he’s got a real treat for you — the Wolf will tell us about his most lucrative swindle yet: providing government-funded training to Aussies. That’s right, over the past few years the Wolf’s hastily set-up training company has reportedly billed Aussie taxpayers $10 million for “Vocational Education and Training (VET)”.

At the end of his speech — titled the “Vulture of VET” — everyone in the audience will receive a Cert IV in ripping off the Australian taxpayer.

Please sign the training form and the Vulture will collect $9800 a pop from the Government.

And now let’s get on with the awards.

BEST FOREIGN LANGUAGE FILM

OTHERWISE known as the Token SBS Award, this award is about using language to contort and confuse. The winners this year are Scott Morrison and Malcolm Turnbull, for their (small “l”) liberal use of the words “tax reform”. So let us translate this polly-speak for you: when the Government plans to cut our taxes, they say they’re delivering “tax cuts”. When they’re planning to increase our taxes, they call it “tax reform”. “Reform” sounds powerful, productive, purposeful and ... wonderfully vague. Well played, gents.

Malcolm Turnbull and Scott Morrison.

THE FULL DISCLOSUREAWARD

THE Fogey for Full Disclosure goes to Federal Senator Jacqui Lambie. Holding the balance of power in our Senate requires supreme intellect, machiavellian instincts and impeccable judgment. In an FM radio interview, Lambie outlined what she’s looking for in a partner: “They must have heaps of cash and they’ve got to have a package between their legs … they don’t even need to speak,” she said. However, Lambie was at pains to explain that she’s not ready for a relationship: “Right now the state I’m in, you’d want to bring out the whipper-snipper first,” disclosed Senator Lambie. (Just so you know, Jacqui has been entrusted to be one of the deciding votes on legislation that drives our $1.5 trillion economy).

WORST IDEA OF THE YEAR

THIS award is always hotly contested, yet it takes millions of dollars and a team of dedicated professionals to come up with the stinker idea of 2015. And that’s exactly what the marketing geniuses of Woolies delivered: to commemorate (and capitalise) on Anzac Day, Woolworths launched a social media campaign “Lest We Forget” which plastered a Woolies logo on a picture of a war veteran and used the hashtag “Fresh in Our Memories”, because they’re the fresh food people. Classy.

BEST COMEBACK

THE Minister for Networth, Malcolm Turnbull, should have won this award for toppling the bloke that no one liked, but he’s already got enough tickets on himself. So the winner of the Fogey goes to the Aussie consumer. This year we may have the lowest wages growth on record, but we still bought a record number of brand new cars and raised our level of household debt to new highs. Keep on shoppin’, Australia!

SNAKE OIL SALESPERSON OF THE YEAR

THIS award goes to Belle Gibson, founder of the wildly successful app The Whole Pantry, which was promoted exhaustively by the mainstream media and Apple. Gibson claimed she’d cured her numerous cancers by alternative medicine and healthy eating — and convinced other cancer sufferers to replace chemo with carrots (and to buy her stuff). She then confessed to Channel Nine’s 60 Minutes that it was all a lie ... and reportedly pocketed $45,000 for the interview.

Belle Gibson.

BOX OFFICE BOMB

THE winner of the Box Office Bomb award is the private equity banker behind Dick Smith: Anchorage Capital. For those of you who haven’t followed the story, Anchorage purchased Dick Smith from Woolworths for a bargain basement price. Spent 15 months sprucing the business up, then turned around and sold it back to the stock market — and most likely your super fund. This is actually the second award for Anchorage Capital. They took out the gong at the “Australian Private Equity and Venture Capital Association Awards”. Here’s how the awards night was billed to the Australian Financial Review: “This year’s event was used to try to change perceptions about an often maligned industry, as well as reward remarkable investments and business restructures, such as the turnaround of Dick Smith. “There is a perception among media circles and some parts of the investment community that private equity is about buying business through large amounts of debt, ripping out the costs and selling it within a few years to make a quick buck — something the industry emphatically rejects.” Today, Anchorage’s actions have been hailed in the media as “one of the greatest private equity heists of all time”. Investors are now down 80 per cent on their money. Anchorage reportedly made $370 million in 15 months. What a year, boys.

BEST ACTOR

BILL Shorten’s performance as a witness before the Royal Commission was well worth a mention, even though the judge found that he was “evasive” and gave “non-responsive answers”.

But, after much deliberation, the Best Actor Award for 2015 goes to Clive Palmer, who’s been acting like he’s solvent. Great job, Clive.

Russ Withers.

SILVER FOGEY

THE Silver Fogey, otherwise known as the Runner-Up Award (otherwise known as the Leonardo Dicaprio Award), goes to 7-Eleven co-founder Russ Withers. Not since the late, great Alan Bond have we seen such a stirringly vague performance from a billionaire under the gun. Despite building the 7-Eleven business from the ground up over nearly 40 years, poor old Russ appeared literally dumbstruck when it was revealed that the only way most of his franchisees could afford to pay his hefty franchise fees was by exploiting underpaid overseas workers.

GOLD FOGEY

SO, without further ado, I am pleased to announce the winner of this year’s Gold Fogey … the Commonwealth Bank of Australia. This year the CBA told analysts that it would be centring its growth strategy on young people — specifically the deep links it has with its Dollarmites School banking program, which allows it to cost-effectively sign up schoolkids to their credit card marketing database. While some have argued that having Australia’s biggest issuer of credit cards teach your kids about money is the same as allowing Ronald McDonald teach your kids about nutrition, the CBA was only getting warmed up. In November they announced they wanted to be known as “the ethical bank”. However, it seems they’re a little unsure when they should kick off the whole “acting ethical” thing.

The Commonwealth Bank gets the Gold Fogey.

After a decade of widespread, systematic fraud by the bank’s financial planners, the CBA is still steadfastly refusing to back an industry compensation scheme for the victims of dodgy financial planning advice. The ethical thing to do would be to send them a Dollarmites colouring book, complete with cute (bank inspired) cartoon characters. Yet maybe the most ethical thing they could do is add to the Dollarmites’ characters Cred and Pru, by adding “Con” — the financial planner who rips you off and ruins your retirement. And with that I bid you goodbye, and hope that next year you’ll tread your own path!

Tread Your Own Path!

Originally published as Winners are sinners in Barefoot Investor’s Fogey Awards