Bombers away amid AFL doping fallout

Bombers away amid doping fallout

With 34 of Essendon’s past and present players pondering an appeal against a ruling from the Court of Arbitration for Sport that tars them as doping cheats, the AFL club’s woes go on like Celine Dion’s heart.

New chairman, former Labor treasurer Lindsay Tanner, presides over a club that’s spent millions on legal costs over doping in 2012, when James Hird was coach.

There’s been “board renewal” aplenty since then.

CEO Ian Robson was the first to go, quitting in March 2013 after the scandal broke (he went on to Melbourne Victory in Frank Lowy’s A-League).

Robson was followed by Evans & Partners head David Evans, who resigned as chairman (to be replaced by former Toll boss Paul Little) in July 2013 after suffering a shocking breakdown.

Also out: Kevin Egan and Jo-Anne Albert in 2014 then Phillip Pryor, Greg Brown and Daryl Jackson last year.

There are now just two directors left who came on before the 2012 season — Incitec Pivot chairman Paul Brasher and Ernst & Young M&A adviser Chris Heffernan.

Both have a couple of years to run and it might not be fair to blame them for the club’s governance problems.

ASIC records show they were brought on board in October 2011, the month after Dean “The Weapon” Robinson started as high-performance coach.

Sport Court found it was Robinson who introduced Hird to pharma guru Stephen “Dr Ageless” Dank, who ran the ill-fated supplements program.

Earnings blues

Cross-town rivals Carlton have proved that a billionaire-heavy board isn’t enough to stave off financial disaster.

The club, which boasts as directors box queen Jeanne Pratt, her son-in-law Raph Geminder, Australia’s highest-paid public servant Ahmed Fahour, Spotlight’s Zac Fried and Mathieson family rep Craig Mathieson, lost $2.7 million last year.

Membership, pokies revenue and sponsorship were all down, and the club relies on the support of Gill McLachlan’s AFL and Brian Hartzer’s Westpac — which it owes $5m.

Luckily, Geminder is well-placed to help out. As of June 30 last year his private Kin Group has more than $1.3 billion in assets, including almost $450m in cash, accounts filed with ASIC show. That’s down from 2014 after Kin paid a $77m tax bill, presumably representing capital gains on the 2013 IPO of packaging biz Pact Group.

Calling the shots

To summer sports, where Oz Open sponsor Guvera racked up an $81m loss last year (Margin Call, yesterday). But at least one party involved with the streaming media play and perennial IPO hopeful is scoring points — director Darren Herft’s AMMA Private Equity, which over the past two years has reaped more than $10m in fees for raising equity tipped into the streaming music service.

AMMA gets 10 per cent of equity and 5 per cent of debt raised — plus a trailing commission. Anyone for tennis?

Hitting the jackpot

Never mind a Chinese corruption crackdown and runaway high-rollers, it’s bonuses all round at James Packer’s Macau casino group Melco Crown.

Workers at Melco’s City of Dreams and Studio City, which opened in October with a performance from Mrs Packer-to-be Mariah Carey, are to get a bonus equal to a month’s pay in their hands before Chinese New Year (the Monday after next).

Macanese gambling revenue was down 34 per cent last year, and even when high-rollers turn up it’s not easy collecting.

Hong Kong court records show Melco Crown has been pursuing gambler Ian Chu Chi Ho for three years over a $660,000 debt. Not that casinos in Singapore have it any easier — Chu owes Lion City gambling den Marina Sands some $1.1m.

New blow wave

French hair salon chain Franck Provost Paris has snapped up eight salons marooned by the collapse in October of chain Evolve after its board walked away.

Most of the loss-making chain’s 50 salons shut following the move, by Corrs partner Stephanie Daveson, former Greencross CFO Wes Coote and former Octaviar boss Craig Chapman.

FPP said it bought salons in NSW and Queensland trading under the TMH, Cut&Colour and Lattouf marks and that they would all be up and running by March.

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