Annette Sharp: Mark Bouris’s Yellow Brick Road shares in freefall

Shares in mortgage company Yellow Brick Road have plunged from their 2008 listing price of $1.10 to just 5c. Will company founder Mark Bouris look to his famous pals to help him out, asks Annette Sharp.

Mark Bouris has always been aggressive and sure-footed when it comes to promoting himself.

He has long been a staunch proponent of the credo he who dominates the media space wins, and for two decades he has worked diligently to gain and preserve relations with friendly media partners to guarantee maximum exposure.

It was likely something learned while studying the take-no-prisoners promo-saturated business style of his major backer and friend, media magnate Kerry Packer, who in 1999 acquired half of Bouris’s fledgling mortgage broking business Wizard for $25m, spurring a period of rapid expansion for the company in the face of stiff competition from then dominant non-bank lender Aussie Home Loans.

Winning Packer’s backing and blessing did not come cheaply for Bouris.

To gain access to Packer’s ear the Punchbowl-raised Greek-Australian first had to ditch his beloved Canterbury Bulldogs and become a card-carrying member of eastern suburbs glamour club, the Roosters.

Mark Bouris (L to R), then-Channel 9 CEO David Gyngell and James Packer at a party in 2003.

While some would say he sold out his working-class background by switching rugby league affiliations, others would venture he’d merely traded up.

It would be Roosters’ chairman Nick Politis who introduced the ambitious entrepreneur-in-the-making to Packer.

Bouris’s mortgage company Yellow Brick Road is struggling. Picture: Supplied

Packer’s natural and unnatural sons, James Packer and David Gyngell, both future bosses of the business titan’s Nine Network, would become mates and supporters into the bargain.

That affiliation with Packer Jr and Gyngell would serve Bouris and his profile well in the years after Packer Sr’s death in 2005.

In 2009, after selling Wizard in 2004 to GE for more than $400m (seeing Packer’s investment soar to $200m-plus) and launching a new mortgage company Yellow Brick Road in 2007, Bouris won the role as the host of The Apprentice Australia on the Packer-owned Nine Network.

It boosted his profile and that of his new company, giving both national exposure.

Bouris on Celebrity Apprentice Australia with Pauline Hanson (left) and Jesinta Franklin.

Two years later in 2011, with Gyngell at the helm of Nine, the media company would acquire a 19.9 per cent stake in Yellow Brick Road, ensuring Bouris’s regular appearance on the broadcaster in the decade that followed.

Bouris’s marketing nous had by then been identified as one of his most tradeable commodities.

He had a genius for it.

This bore immediate fruit when The Apprentice franchise was rebooted that year with the spin-off series Celebrity Apprentice Australia, featuring Bouris once more as host.

The program featured Yellow Brick Road — and Bouris — in the ad breaks.

Nine’s television division continues to spruik their business partner’s finance acumen to this day.

As recently as last week he discussed the short-term stay levy proposed by the Victorian government (and the benefits of hiring a mortgage broker … ahhh, yup) on Nine’s breakfast show, Today.

However, over at Nine’s print division the tide has turned.

Nine’s print division last week started throwing bombs at Bouris and the decision to de-list Yellow Brick Road from the ASX.

Bouris recruited his father George to help him flog his whiskey brand this month.

For years it seems to have escaped Nine’s attention that Yellow Brick Road has been in freefall on the ASX. Since 2014 it has plunged from 77c a share to 5c.

On September 14, it went into a trading halt.

At 5c, stocks are well down on the business’s 2008 listing price of $1.10.

It seems Bouris’s promotion – on the web, on television and in print, on two podcasts, on web shows, on speaking tours and in books – hasn’t penetrated with mum and dad investors, at least not in relation to his one major finance venture, Yellow Brick Road.

Not even mum and dad investors from Punchbowl.

Last week, Bouris said Yellow Brick Road’s miserable market price was due to the business being “misunderstood”.

It would seem Bouris can sell himself passionately – he has even recruited dad George to help flog a whiskey brand he has launched – but he’s struggling with Yellow Brick Road right now.

We have to wonder if the powerful friends who once rallied to his side will now do so again.

OZ PARADISE FOR HIT CRIME SHOW?

Death in Paradise, the British-French TV crime series, looks set to capitalise on its popularity in this country, with word that it is headed this way to shoot episodes for its forthcoming 13th series.

The show, starring Ralf Little, Elizabeth Bourgine and Don Warrington, has been a surprise global hit in Britain, France, Canada, the US, South Africa and Australia, where this year it managed to knock off Channel 10’s Survivor and Channel 7’s Australian Idol in the ratings.

Is Death in Paradise headed Down Under?

Producers, this column hears, have spent the past two weeks establishing a local production office for the show.

Casting is set to follow, offering a rare opportunity for local actors to win a cameo in the international dramedy.

The program has been a consistent top rater in the UK, outperforming programs such as Broadchurch.

The formula is simple – a homicide caper set in a beautiful, sunny location.

It is usually filmed on the French Caribbean Island of Guadeloupe.

Insiders said producer the BBC had started scouting locations locally.

FASHION PUBLISHERS DUST OFF GLOSSY MAG TITLES

The decision by ARE Media to once again set the printing presses running on print editions of fashion title Elle has been well received by the industry.

Three years after German media company Bauer made the decision to axe a slate of glossy mags, among them Harper’s Bazaar, InStyle, OK! and Elle, along with the staff who once toiled over them, new owner ARE has declared it will print two editions of Elle in 2024 and four editions in 2025.

OK, so it’s not yet a monthly offering, but at least it’s a start.

ARE is a little slow to the party, given True North Media rebooted InStyle in September 2022 and Switzer Media revived Harper’s Bazaar recently.

The revived InStyle also came off the blocks as a biannual and has become a quarterly with Justine Cullen at the helm.

The first edition of Elle is planned to be on shelves next March.

An editor is yet to be announced but is expected to be in future days.

While fashion staple Vogue Australia has remained on shelves during the Covid downturn, the return of fashion titles promises to bolster the struggling local fashion industry, with stalwarts last week of the view the rebooted competition will have a flow-on effect, benefiting the Australian fashion industry at large, including designers and consumers.

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