Abbott’s pitch tinged in red and white

And so Tony Abbott returned to the scene where he first made an emotional pitch to the captains of industry.

Last year’s speech to the annual gathering of the Business Council of Australia focused on small business and foreign investors, but this year things were different.

A roll call of heavy hitters from business, their legal and banking handmaidens and regulators made the descent to the basement of Sydney’s Westin hotel to hear Abbott’s return speech. This time the message from the PM was about red tape and white papers.

Good and the great

MARGIN Call counted 430 delegates tucking into the chicken and chips at the annual BCA shindig.

Among those were Reserve Bank governor Glenn Stevens chatting with his old Treasury sparring partner Ken Henry, no doubt about life after the public service. Henry, of course, is now a director of National Australia Bank and the ASX.

Mirvac chairman John Mulcahy caught up with JPMorgan’s Australia boss Rob Priestley, while Qantas chairman Leigh Clifford was taking financial advice from AMP chairman Simon McKeon.

Aquasia partner and former ABN Amro investment banking stalwart Angus James was seen deep in conversation with Origin Energy chairman and Macquarie director to be Gordon Cairns.

James was later seen swapping cards with former BCA president Tony Shepherd, who these days is doing more in sport than in business as chairman of the Greater Western Sydney AFL team and chair of the Sydney Cricket Ground Trust.

Deutsche Bank’s James McMurdo took a spell from selling Medibank to stop by for an entree, while Lion chairman Rod Eddington got the chance to catch up with his CEO Stuart Irvine as Sydney Airport chairman Max Moore-Wilton looked after the security screening for guests.

Macquarie boss Nicholas Moore was deep in conversation with ACCC chairman Rod Sims and Infrastructure NSW chief Paul Broad.

Another former BCA president, Hugh Morgan, renewed acquaintances with Melbourne rich lister Marc Besen, of Sussan retailing fame, who has been a regular at recent BCA annual dinners. They were soon joined by retiring Fairfax chairman and former Woolies boss Roger Corbett.

Late comers included Virgin Australia boss John Borghetti.

Woodside director Melinda Cilento, a former member of the BCA secretariat, was swapping acronyms with BCA board member and Australian B20 Sherpa Robert Milliner as the entrees were served.

A moment of truth

BAD times for investors in education outfit Vocation, whose shares plunged more than 56 per cent after the company finally admitted that, contrary to repeated denials, action by Victorian regulators was indeed very material to earnings.

At least Macquarie and UBS, who underwrote the company’s IPO in November, are OK: they reaped total fees of $6.4 million, and Macquarie got another $1m for acting as corporate adviser.

Chairman and former Keating-era treasurer John Dawkins, who in the prospectus boasted of Vocation’s “robust systems and processes for ensuring regulatory compliance”, got $1.2m for work done before the float.

Investors who ploughed $142m into the float at $1.89 a share saw the stock close at 99.5c yesterday.

Up until Monday, UBS analyst Martin Byers reckoned Vocation shares were worth a dizzy $4.45; he cut that to $2.70 but still rates them buy.

UBS backed up the truck again just last month, raising $74m at $3.05 from institutional investors — two thirds of which has been wiped out.

Announcing the capital raising on September 10, Vocation again said the review of operations was not material.

Oops. Two Victorian subsidiaries, BAWM and Aspin, are to lose their state government funding, although Vocation hopes other parts of the company can pick up the slack.

BAWM and Aspin were sold into Vocation by founders Wendy Bonnici, Ben Gillingham, Amanda King, Michael Langtree and Brendan Morrisey.

Collectively, they received $102.7m. Cash.

A wild ride

THE favourite Cup Day haunt of CEOs and celebrities, the Emirates marquee at Flemington Racecourse, has been blasted by lightning. Margin Call hears the doors of the glam tent were blown out and the ceiling singed in Monday night’s wild storms.

It won’t stop the party. “Thankfully, there was minimal damage, which is being addressed, and we remain well on track to open the doors to our guests on Derby Day,” an Emirates spokeswoman said.

Timely piece of advice

FOR the big financial news, Margin Call turns to Bluenotes, the hard-hitting website run by Mike Smith’s ANZ Bank. But scouring the site yesterday produced not a mention of banking’s big blunder, the premature exhibition of ANZ’s full-year profit on Monday.

However, there was a helpful piece explaining what investors are looking for in a profit announcement from the man responsible for releasing ANZ’s results to the market, head of regulatory reporting John Nguyen. Timely.

Down to the strip

DEVELOPERS, club owners and perhaps the Grollo family are set to duke it out this morning for control of the building that houses infamous nudie bar Spearmint Rhino, on Melbourne sin strip King Street.

The building is currently owned by a company controlled by the Tenuta family, whose Domenic Tenuta used to be in business with Gypsy Joker Tony Sobey.

It was also the place where Hells Angel Christopher Hudson met Collingwood footballer Alan Didak the week before going on a shooting spree that left a man dead in 2007.

But all this colour and movement could be in the past if the Grollo family, which owns the nearby Rialto tower and has long wanted to jazz up the area, snaps it up. Also mentioned as a possible purchaser is Peter Iwaniuk, who owns the Centrefold Lounge next door. The building is being sold in Burgess Rawson’s portfolio auction, from 11am at Crown casino.

St Jude the miraculous

BURIED at the bottom of Perth group Antares Energy’s triumphant announcement of a $150m sale of one of its gasfields in Texas on Monday was an odd footnote: “Special thanks to St Jude”.

St Jude is the patron saint of lost causes and the impossible, and is sometimes referred to as the miraculous saint. CEO James Cruikshank said it was actually the second time Antares has appealed to St Jude.

Back in 2009 Antares was running out of time and options. One phone call away from administration, it drilled its Yellow Rose exploration well in what was effectively a last roll of the dice.

It paid off. “If you pray to him, and the impossible happens, then you have an obligation to spread the word of what has been achieved,” he said.