Melbourne old-money rich-lister Berry Liberman treated NAB’s private wealth clients to quite a spectacle on Friday when she fired a rocket up corporate Australia and took a thinly veiled swipe at her hapless banking hosts over everyone’s collective insincerity on ESG commitments.
Liberman is a true believer. She must have imbibed every word of Al Gore’s “An Inconvenient Truth” when it was released in 2006 because she’s been crusading like a hepped-up Greta Thunberg ever since.
A couple of months later she started impact investment firm Small Giants with her husband, Danny Almagor, flicking money at a hazelnut concern in Bhutan and other feel-good initiatives, like Dumbo Feather, a magazine she edits.
Liberman’s invitation to the NAB forum was supposedly to discuss her favoured topic of ESG, except this time she experienced a rush of blood on stage and started lashing out at industry efforts on all three metrics, perhaps even NAB’s, and labelling it all a waste of time.
Or better still, in her own words: “ESG is the biggest, bogus crock of sh* ever. And we need to say it, and why I’m going to say it is because ESG is about risk and compliance. It’s not a proactive decision to make a difference with the time that we have left.”
Cue a great many lifted brows at that burst of hard truth, even though Liberman was only saying what many are already thinking. Margin Call is assured that NAB itself wasn’t the target of this criticism, but some in the room had difficulty perceiving it in the alternative. No reply from Liberman either way.
Her predictions continued with the usual fire-and-brimstone of what would happen if more sincere efforts to fix the planet – from the wealth of private individuals and not heartless, box-ticking corporates – weren’t initiated posthaste.
“I reckon we’ve got less than 10 years, potentially less than five, before the system breaks and we’re actually in a state of total chaos. Financial capital will not be the currency of the future. The currency of the future is going to be community, arable land and fresh water,” she said.
Is that why Almagor spends his spare time mucking around with beehives and harvesting honey? Liberman and NAB go some way back, of course. The bank’s former CEO, Andrew Thorburn, was executive chairman of Sentient Impact Group, yet another ethical investment outfit founded by Liberman and Almagor. Thorburn stepped down earlier this year (from all board appointments) after that difficulty with his church’s views on homosexuality and its comparison of abortion with the Holocaust. Luke Sayers is still a director, Margin Call notes.
We’re told the relationship with NAB runs deeper, perhaps all the way back to Berry’s grandfather, Jack Liberman, who built the family fortune, not always on what was ideal for the planet, either.
Succession stuff-up
What else do we need to know about the confusion of Tim Reed’s governance of the Business Council of Australia when we now learn that he endlessly prodded and ultimately spooked former NSW premier Dom Perrottet out of accepting a role as CEO?
Imagine the temerity of rushing a state leader and treasurer of six years to decide on a job offer over completely unfounded fears that another candidate might walk away for another gig. Especially when that candidate was Bran Black, Perrottet’s likeable but plainly less-qualified former chief-of-staff who’s triumphed in Bradbury-like fashion to receive the BCA’s $1m annual package.
As reported, Perrottet had an interest in the role but only until Reed began needling him for an answer because of the panic about Jennifer Westacott being out the door by October.
It shouldn’t shock anyone that Reed fumbled the Perrottet engagement when he also passed up Kate Pounder for Stuart Ayres, only to mismanage that, too. He’s like Decca’s Dick Rowe – you give him The Beatles and his instinct is to rush off and find a middling pub band with fewer guitars and a guy playing the tuba.
Instead of giving Perrottet a geological era to deliberate – and enough time to vacate his seat in parliament, perhaps? – Reed’s head explodes and he rushes into the arms of Bran Black to put out the fire.
And good on him. If there’s one thing going for Perrottet’s old whipping boy it’s that his name checks out in Canberra. The Prime Minister’s office is said to have provided their blessing for the appointment. Apparently Chris Minns isn’t displeased with it either.
More wrongs than rights at the AHRC?
A case of curious priorities over at the Australian Human Rights Commission where hand-picked appointee Giridharan Sivaraman seems to prefer playing politics over action on anti-Semitism.
Freehills partner given notice over synagogue tweet
Herbert Smith Freehills leaders have voted to remove one of its longstanding partners, Damien Hazard, over a ‘deeply offensive’ tweet targeting Jeremy Leibler.