Bill Evans bides his time in two cities

Bill Evans, the Sydney-based Westpac chief economist. Melbourne’s on-again, off-again lockdowns have made sustaining a relationship from afar most difficult. Picture: Alan Barber

What better day than the RBA’s monthly board meeting for an update on the life and times of Westpac veteran chief economist Bill Evans.

Margin Call hears that the 71-year-old Sydneysider has in recent times been spending much time south of the border in Melbourne, thanks to matters of the heart and Victoria’s horror two years amid the ongoing Covid-19 pandemic under Premier Daniel Andrews’ government.

Evans’ partner of some years lives in the southern capital, with the city’s on-again, off-again lockdowns making sustaining a relationship from afar most difficult, prompting the economist to spend more time there than at his home in Manly, where Evans has a two-bedder opposite the beach.

But there is no permanent move afoot for the 30-year Westpac economist, with Evans telling Margin Call things will revert to what they were, “alternating between the cities” plus much international travel, once the pandemic has passed.

Bill Evans. Cartoon by Rod Clement

Evans has just stepped off the board of the Randwick-based Australian Turf Club, following completion of the maximum two terms, but his passion for the ponies will endure – Evans has even named his super trustee company after Australian champion thoroughbred Kingston Town.

“I have been interested in the sport since my university days, but have never invested the funds needed to be an owner – much prefer my share portfolio,” he said.

Game, set and match

Now that the Australian Open is done and dusted, Tennis Australia chair Jayne Hrdlicka can return to her day job running the resurrected Virgin Australia.

No more juggling both roles as she has been doing, or pedalling hard to fly under the radar amid the Grand Slam’s myriad controversies, means that Hrdlicka, who celebrated her 60th birthday in the first week of the fortnight-long tournament, can return to living in her rented home in the Brisbane suburb of Coorparoo.

Jayne Hrdlicka with Rod Laver at the Australian Open. Picture: Getty Images

That means that – as of today – the former Bain management consultant’s historic mansion on Hawthorn’s prestigious Kooyongkoot Road is back up for rent. You too can live like an airline CEO for a mere $8000 a week.

The home, which like the American-born exec’s Brisbane abode has a tennis court and pool, was initially placed on the rental market last November.

Hrdlicka had federal Treasurer and local member Josh Frydenberg seated next to her at Saturday’s final of the women’s tennis, which was won by Ash Barty.

Frydenberg’s been known to have a hit with the TA chair at her Hawthorn home, which is in his Kooyong electorate.

Coorparoo puts Hrdlicka in the seat of Griffith, held by Labor’s Terri Butler, Labor spokeswoman for the environment and water.

Wonder what her forehand’s like?

Top spin

Still on tennis, Margin Call hears that amid the Novak Djokovic visa saga Tennis Australia’s leadership team turned to Melbourne spinner and former Fairfax editorial executive Mark Hawthorne to assist it through the tumult.

Hawthorne and his shop Civic Financial Communications are on something of a roll when it comes to crisis management and the delivery of strategic advice on stakeholder management to the Melbourne elite.

Following news of the TA work, Margin Call has pieced together quite a picture of Civic and Hawthorne’s clients.

The former journo has added David Evans’ E&P Financial Group to his roster, with plenty on the bill there following Dixon Advisory’s plunge into voluntary administration last month.

E&P sits alongside existing Civic clients that include John Wylie’s Tanarra Capital and the Leiberman family’s Impact Investment Group, which has now morphed into the Sentient Impact Group, of which former NAB boss Andrew Thorburn is executive chair.

That’s on top of Civic’s work for Peter Cooper’s Cooper Investments which has $17bn in funds under management. Plenty to go on with there.

Hawthorne and his colleague Chris Newman also recently helped out Nadia Bartel after she was outed breaking Melbourne’s Covid lockdown to attend an illegal party with friends, where she was filmed snorting a line of white powder off a $1.50 Kmart plate.

Meanwhile, after what’s believed to be a flurry of phone calls, the Djokovic camp eventually managed to land Bastion Reputation to help get The Joker’s side of the visa story across to media, for whom the scandal was the gift that kept on giving.

Generous support

Enigmatic Chinese mining identity Sally Zou, who divides her time between Sydney’s harbourside and Adelaide, has lost her mantle as one of the Liberal Party’s most generous donors, but with the election in South Australia scheduled for next month, we await with bated breath the businesswoman’s next move.

In the lead-up to the last state election, Zou, who’s also been a generous donor at the federal level, even naming one of her companies the Julie Bishop Glorious Foundation in honour of our former foreign minister, tweeted out an image of a cheque made out to the party’s South Australian division for more than $1.2m.

The cheque never arrived in the mail, but close observers noted the amount of the cheque corresponded with the digits of SA Premier Steven Marshall’s birthday that year.

Zou has been somewhat of a shrinking violet in the past couple of years, after a high-profile period during which she took out full page newspaper ads welcoming former Liberal PM Malcolm Turnbull to Adelaide, got about in a Rolls Royce wrapped in the Australian flag, and even celebrated one of her daughter’s birthdays with a full-page advertisement in The Australian name-checking “Dear Uncle Tony Abbott’’.

Zou remains close to former defence minister Christopher Pyne, whom she has on the payroll as a lobbyist, and is rumoured to be close to senior Liberals such as Finance Minister Simon Birmingham.

Last financial year, according to Australian Electoral Commission figures released on Tuesday, Zou’s companies, Transcendent Australia and Australian Romance, donated a combined $44,422 to the SA arm of the Liberal Party, while her company Aus Gold Mining chipped in $77,777 to the national Libs.

Her contribution was dwarfed in SA by that of rich-listers Pam and Ian Wall, who made their fortune from technology firm Codan, which Ian co-founded.

Victorian property mogul Ross Pelligra’s Pelligra Group, which owns a slew of assets in Adelaide including the former Holden factory site, donated $59,150 to the SA Liberals.

All that was coughed up in a non-election year.

The Libs are certain to have their begging bowls out again towards March 19.