Animoca checks out Paris end of Hilton

Cartoon: Peter Nicholson.

WE’LL always have Paris — for a price. ASX-listed Animoca Brands is the latest to check out Hilton, signing a deal to use the socialite’s name and likeness in its mobile phone games.

Others may have long moved on to Kim Kardashian, but the deal proves the enduring ability of Hilton, and those close to her, to monetise her image — even if Animoca doesn’t think the royalties it will pay are big enough to bother disclosing.

She trademarked her slogan “that’s hot” (really) in 2007, and her logo — a P under a tiara — way back in 2004.

That was the year after her sex tape with internet gambling kingpin Rick Salomon was aired. Salomon’s mate Don Thrasher sold it to a porn company for $50,000 upfront and a 30 per cent royalty.

According to the contract, Salomon wanted to clear his good name after Hilton denied the tape existed and called him a “complete liar and scumbag”.

At the time he was married to Shannon Doherty, the Beverly Hills 92010 actress with the wonky eyes, and the contract noted the risk his marriage “may be put in jeopardy” if it became public he’d agreed to the deal.

Salomon ended up denying he had any part in it and the whole thing was eventually settled out of court.

Triguboff’s birthday

HAPPY birthday to billionaire property developer Harry Triguboff, who celebrated his 82nd on Monday night at a fundraising dinner (again — he did the same last year).

Margin Call hears plenty of building contractors who do work for Triguboff’s Meriton empire were among the 560 people who attended the Sofitel do, which raised more than $1m for the Sydney Yeshiva Centre.

The centre runs the Yeshiva Godola Rabbinical College and charity services including Our Big Kitchen, which general manager Greg Fisher said last year pumped out 65,000 meals for the needy.

Stairs stalks ANZ

SPOTTED wandering slowly past the ANZ branch opposite Sydney’s Chifley Tower: Westpac’s head of insto banking, Rob “Stairs” Whitfield. Perhaps he was pondering what life is like at Mike “Secret Agent” Smith’s outfit (or anywhere else but Westpac) after he was last month passed over for the top job in favour of a mere retail banker, Brian Hartzer.

Marais farewell

CONTRARIAN investor Simon Marais is to be farewelled by family and friends next Thursday in a memorial service at the City Recital Hall in Sydney. The Allan Gray boss died of cancer last week.

Who’s the Deco now?

IT looks like we’re all “southern dickheads” now. CuDeco executive chairman Wayne McRae is famous for using the phrase to describe critics from south of the Queensland border.

But while CuDeco likes to call itself the “new force in copper” its fundraising lacks oomph.

The stock has been suspended for more than a month as McCrae rattled the tin to raise money needed for its Rocklands copper project.

Good news! On Monday CuDeco said the Foreign Investment Review Board had approved a $30m injection from investor China Oceanwide International, taking the fund to just under the 20 per cent takeover threshold.

Bad news! The placement was at $1.25 a share, well short of the last closing price of $1.41 and way below the dizzy $1.95 it fetched back in December.

Worse news! CuDeco is now looking for another $50m, also at $1.25 a pop. Shareholders are furious, blasting the “garbage that we keep hearing” on web forum Hotcopper.

McCrae best hop to it: CuDeco burnt $15.5m in cash in the three months to the end of December, leaving just $7.4m in the bank.

Garrett corked

THE Federal Court’s Tony Pagone is the latest judge to tell winemaker Andrew Garrett to stick a cork in it by declaring him a vexatious litigant.

For a decade now the South Australian vigneron has been stoushing with the NAB, the ATO and Treasury Wine Estates, which bought the rights to his name, after seeing red over his financial downfall.

His Honour shi-razzed Garret, saying he “seems incapable of exercising any self-discipline” and a Federal Court suit he filed last year was just the latest in a series of attempts to revisit a deed he signed in 2000.

Garrett now needs permission from the court before he can file lawsuits against the ATO. The SA Supreme Court declared him vexatious in 2007.

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