ACU loses millions in failed bet; Tara Moriarty’s video bloopers

Australian Catholic University vice-chancellor Zlatko Skrbis.

Panic stations, evidently, at the Australian Catholic University after our report on Friday ventilated much dirty linen over the state of its finances and the consequent number of senior staff being sacked.

All of which has apparently garnered some attention from the Vatican into the university’s affairs, which is highly embarrassing, and the university issued a carefully worded statement in response, telling us that ACU is “not involved in any Vatican investigation into its ­affairs,” which can mean a number of things, so make of it what you will.

ACU’s problem revolves around the financial decision-making of vice-chancellor Zlatko Skrbis, who was appointed to the role in 2021 and arrived with a surplus of $50m at his disposal.

Since then he’s presided over great outpourings of expenditure, on projects that haven’t ­delivered the milk and honey that everyone was promised.

Take, for example, a $25m outlay on ACU Online, a platform launched in December 2021 to bet on the pandemic trend of distance-learning. It was sold as having an ROI forecast of $40m and the return since has come in at fathoms beneath that number (low-single-digit millions, if they’re lucky).

In light of the great purge ­afflicting ACU staff – including chief operating officer Stephen Weller, who was summarily let go in March, although there are many more – this sort of reckless spending is quite obviously being questioned by some and slammed as downright obscene by multiple others.

So, too, is a regrettable decision by ACU management not to sell its shareholding in listed service provider IDP Education, whose share price hit a high of $32 early last year and has slumped to disappointing lows since.

On Friday, shares in IDP closed at $14.46, representing a staggering deterioration to the university’s holding – potentially $24m is the figure suggested to us – although university officials, quite foolishly, defended the decision to hold.

“Investment in IDP is a long-term strategy,” an ACU spokeswoman said. “The decision not to sell IDP shares in early 2023 was considered and taken by ACU’s Finance and Resources Committee after receiving both internal and external advice.”

Certainly an admission of regret, by the sounds, although it’s our understanding that the Finance and Resources Committee doesn’t really make the call to buy or sell, just provides the advice to management. It’s actually the vice-chancellor who can decide whether to press the button.

But sure, we can also understand why he’d want to put himself a thousand miles from this particularly bad call. Sure sounds like someone, somewhere in that coterie of adviser groups, thought it might be prudent to cash in the chips at the time.

Moriarty master class

Lean in, sister! Some stealthily recorded footage has been slipped to us of NSW Labor minister Tara Moriarty being given some kind of deportment masterclass on how to address the Legislative Council. Her tutor – older chap, stern, arms tightly folded – provided this lesson at 8.49 one morning last year, the chamber staff milling about and watching on in bemusement.

Labor minister Tara Moriarty caught on camera getting schooled on how to speak with authority in the NSW Legislative Council

From our assessment, Moriarty’s problem wasn’t with walking to the microphone (the bloke gave some nodding approval at that). The film is soundless but we can gather the issue was Moriarty’s mastery of the microphone, her efforts requiring some tweaking and a demonstration of how to physically grab the lectern (with both hands!) and to really crowd into the mic, with a stiff bow to the president once the speaking’s through.

...and again.

Hardly something anyone wants to be captured doing on camera, but props to Moriarty for taking being sprung on the chin. “Footage from well over a year ago,” she said.

“Practice make perfect.”

CBA loses ground

We raised a brow this week at Stephen Halmarick’s quirky economic dispatch from a recent trip to the US, the CBA chief economist bestowing investors with some non-essential observations from his visits to Washington and New York City. (“The subway was definitely cleaner and at no time did I feel unsafe, including at night as there was always plenty of people around from all walks of life.”)

Thank you, again, Stephen.

Sadly, while Halmarick was hamming it up, CBA’s desk monkeys took a pounding in the latest KangaNews Fixed Income Trading and Research Poll, which surveys the financial community on ranking the quality of banks and their analysts.

A year ago, CBA topped the charts for best overall research on fixed income. This year? A total collapse in its vote. The bank polled last, with Westpac’s Martin Whetton, Damien McColough, Brendon Cooper, Martin Jacques, Uma Choudhury and Jimmy Yao taking home the bikkies instead, followed by the teams at NAB, ANZ and Barrenjoey.

CBA didn’t just fall flat on that metric but several others, too. It dominated last year in the category of best research on the Australian rates market. And now? Gazumped by ANZ, with CBA finishing last on that, and also in the category of best research on international markets for Australian fixed-income investors. Sad!

It finished second last (out of five) for macroeconomic research, which sucks because CBA came first on that a year ago. The only category for which CBA didn’t seem to embarrass itself was in the politically palatable “best research in sustainable finance for ESG in Australian fixed income”. And, frankly, who wants to win that?