It’s the end of an era, but celebrity chef Shannon Bennett is reluctant to talk about his withdrawal from the company he started.
The former MasterChef identity who founded Melbourne’s pioneering Vue de Monde restaurant has sold out of the Vue Group.
The Melbourne and Byron Bay-based chef resigned as a director of the Vue Group on March 27, and handed over his remaining 4.7 million shares to the Singaporean-based Far East Organisation, owned by billionaires Robert and Philip Ng.
Vue Group, which owns Bennett’s two-hatted Vue de Monde restaurant and a string of other well-regarded eateries including Jardin Tan, the Burnham Bakery, Piggery Cafe and Lui Bar, has endured a bumpy 12 months. Its Benny Burger upscale fast-food chain entered administration last October. A month earlier, Bennett and management denied The Age reports some of its restaurants were being hawked to suitors, with one even being said to have been shopped for $1.
Bennett, who has six children with former partner and Neighbours star Madeleine West, rejected requests for comment from The Age on Tuesday, explaining that he was on “a Skype call to Singapore”.
He’s struck a deal where he has kept two businesses out of the group – the Burnham Bakery and Piggery Cafe, inside the Burnham Beeches estate in Sherbrooke, which is being developed along with investor Adam Garrisson.
The latest transaction bookends a process in which Bennett has successively offloaded slices of the Vue Group to Far East, starting with a 65 per cent share in 2016 for $14.6 million. At the time of the deal, the chef said he was motivated to grow the business while pursuing the Burnham Beeches project.
"What I'm doing with these guys, is about establishing the Vue de Monde brand and the associated brands with it so that they are going to be here for the long run," he said in 2016.
Bennett enjoyed a meteoric rise since returning to Melbourne in 2000 after an international apprenticeship and career working with celebrated chefs including Marco Pierre White and Alain Ducasse. Times have been tougher recently but he will continue to act as a consultant for Vue Group.
FORWARD MOMENTUM
As far as sporting talent goes on the east coast celebrity speakers' circuit, Collingwood coach Nathan Buckley has the market cornered.
But is it possible Buckley – who sells out most events he is booked for – could have competition from across the border? Maybe.
NRL championship winning captain Sam Burgess will front up this week for celebrity accountant Anthony Bell, to deliver a seminar giving tips on how to not only “survive” but “thrive” during these difficult times.
Burgess was turfed in late March from his new job as a South Sydney development coach with just two weeks' pay courtesy of the coronavirus pandemic.
On Thursday he’ll turn up with the Bell Partners chief executive in a special client seminar on how to get through difficult times. Or, as Bell put it, “we discuss overcoming adversity, strategy techniques for business and life, plus inspiring stories by business leaders and Australia’s most successful athletes”.
Anthony Bell and Sam Burgess.Credit: Illustration: Matt Golding
Bell, whose marriage acrimony played out in full public view three years ago, has previously been linked to other high-profile identities including Today host Karl Stefanovic.
But for advice, we’re unsure if Burgess is the man on this occasion.
And times have been tough. The former star also finalised his divorce from estranged wife Phoebe, the daughter of former Minerals Council chief executive Mitchell Hooke, last week. She walked away with 70 per cent of the couple’s wealth, including Burgess’ F45 gym in Bowral, the Daily Telegraph reported.
These issues, we gather, will not be discussed in Bell’s interview with Burgess, which promises to “help … unlock the keys to your own success on a personal and business level”.
NEW KID ON THE BLOCK
Victorian senator David Van raised eyebrows when he listed his requests for his new offices inside Melbourne’s federal parliamentary offices at 4 Treasury Place last year.
In a break with tradition inside the near 100-year-old building, the newly minted Liberal senator was clearly looking for a bit more privacy when he asked for a lock to be put on his internal office door.
A shopping list of improvements for his new office in late 2019 outlined how a request regarding Van’s “personal office door” had “come via the office manager but were all direct from the Senator”.
Other tasks on the list included removing corkboards, patching holes in the wall, hanging artworks and installing two new workstations. The bill came to just over $1000.
On Tuesday, Van denied he was overdoing it on the security front. “It seemed strange that [the office] didn’t have locks on the door,” he said. “There was a position for them.”
But it’s done nothing to quieten bemused – and clearly nosy – neighbours. Or as one 4TP-politico said: “Security is pretty good in here as it is.”