Brett Blundy’s BridgeClimb too far for ASX float list

Cartoon: Peter Nicholson

Singapore retail billionaire Brett Blundy’s charm offensive for his latest Aussie stock hopeful Aventus was not enough to take his tally of ASX floats to a giddy three in a year.

There’s also a Blundy enterprise that the punters are unlikely to see the 55-year-old flog to the masses any time soon — the wildly successful BridgeClimb tourist venture on Sydney Harbour Bridge.

In a bookbuild yesterday, Blundy wasn’t able to convince insto investors to look through all those management and performance fee structures attached to his $700 million-plus Aventus property float, the third part of his return to the local market after a 10-year hiatus.

Two years ago Blundy, his wife Vanessa Speer and their two small children moved from Sydney to Singapore, declaring at the time: “We’ve done all we can in Australia.” It seems a frothy market changed his mind.

BridgeClimb, owned by Blundy, founder Paul Cave and “Hungry” Jack Cowin, at last count turned over $40m a year for a bottom-line profit of $12.5m.

That’s a 31 per cent margin you’re unlikely to see at Blundy’s listed junk jeweller Lovisa, sheet shop Adairs or Aventus.

In the year, BridgeClimb paid $13.3m in dividends to its investors, which would have helped fund the operation of Blundy’s luxury super yacht Cloud 9 during family frolics off the island paradise of Sentosa.

For veteran adman John Singleton, BridgeClimb is the one that got away. He was offered a stake early on but knocked back the opportunity, believing it wouldn’t get off the ground. He’s said to have regretted the decision ever since.

Oh well, there’s always Aventus.

Offside with women

Soccer boss David Gallop might be able to negotiate his way out of a pay dispute with the Matildas before our female footy stars get on the plane to the US tomorrow, but the experienced sports administrator might have to rethink how he approaches the round ball’s fairer sex.

Gallop, who came from the NRL, a code whose attitude to women was always in the spotlight, was at the MCG yesterday as keynote speaker at a talkfest on sports rights.

The one-time lawyer’s preso on his “whole of football plan” was slick and digestible to the media types assembled, but the pacy highlights package left at least a few bewildered.

Gallop and players’ reps have been locked in a battle over pay and conditions for more than a year, with the Socceroos and A-League players also disgruntled. The Matildas are to play a two-match series against recently crowned world champions the US the week after next, with 60,000 tickets already sold to fans of female footer.

But neither the Matildas, sponsored by FFA chairman Frank Lowy’s Westfield, nor soccer’s women’s league, got a guernsey in Gallop’s spiel on the “world game”, the irony of which was pointed out by an annoyed member of the audience.

“That is a good point and I will take it on board,” Gallop responded, before dashing for the airport for Sydney to try to sort out the Matildas mess.

Boss’s belief in Eva

Myer boss Richard Umbers believes in the power of his mythical “it” girl Eva, whose cash is to restore the department store’s flagging fortunes.

He’s spent $200,000 in the past week scooping up 212,230 Myer shares at what he no doubt hopes is the bottom of the market. It’s the first parcel of Myer shares the boss owns. His $221m rights issue to cut debt is at 94c a share. Umbers paid an average 95.5c a share two days after the raising was announced and then averaged down slightly four days later, buying another parcel for 93c a share.

All up, that put him at a price about the same as brave souls who get in on the cap raising.

If you are emailing me

There’s an ominous echo of Pauline Hanson’s (in)famous “If you are seeing me now, I have been murdered” video message in the astonishing spray issued by Finance Sector Union boss Fiona Jordan yesterday.

Jordan, who was elected 13 months ago, accuses the old guard on the FSU national executive of sabotaging her through a laundry list of “extraordinary interference”.

While she signs off “in unity”, she’s clearly not expecting much from her opponents, giving a Gmail address for members to reach her “in the event that I am unable to access my FSU email”.

A showdown national executive meeting tomorrow may dictate whether the homebrew address is used.

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