Briggs’ new gig takes PM back

Illustration: Rod Clement

It was a back to the future moment as Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull launched former Nine commercial director Scott Briggs’ new venture shop Pacific Blue Capital in Australia Square.

Briggs’ new offices are all of two floors above the offices of those of Turnbull’s former venture capital business Turnbull Pillemer Capital. That’s the outfit the now PM set up with his former Goldman Sachs colleague Russel Pillemer, who now runs funds manager Pengana — another Turnbull-Pillemer creation.

That office in the Harry Seidler-designed circular Australia Square Tower went on to make Australian political history.

It’s where Turnbull and Briggs hatched the plan to get Turnbull into the seat of Wentworth.

That 2003 project turned out to be one of the firm’s more successful ventures, although the deposed Liberal Wentworth MP Peter King, along with Brendan Nelson and Tony Abbott, might disagree.

In another bit of circularity, the new business is modelled on the old Turnbull-Pillemer business, where Briggs was once a happy employee.

Among those crowded into the new Pacific Blue Capital offices for the Thursday night launch were Macquarie’s Ben Brazil, Lazard’s Lachlan Edwards, Ariadne chairman David Baffsky and Mark Arbib, the lieutenant to James Packer, for whom Briggs is still consulting.

It’s all happening for Briggs, who joined the board of the Cronulla Sharks rugby league team three months before they, last weekend, won their first ever NRL premiership. Good timing.

That success has also been thoroughly enjoyed by another senior Liberal Briggs is close to, the Sharks No 1 ticket holder, Treasurer Scott Morrison, and fellow son of the Shire, Glenn Stevens.

Pratt honoured

They might be worlds apart — and not only in geography — but the Pratt and Kardashian families now finally have something in common.

Heloise Pratt and Jon Stevens. Picture: Julie Kiriacoudis.

Next month Heloise Pratt, formerly Heloise Waislitz, will be honoured by Gabrielle’s Angel Foundation for Cancer Research at a gala event in New York along with the late Robert Kardashian, who died after a battle with cancer 13 years ago.

Kardashian will be represented at the event by the dynamic sister trio of Kim, Khloe and Kourtney. They will be joined by the likes of Sir Bob Geldof, TV star Star Jones, Grammy-nominated songwriter Denise Rich and her daughters Daniella Rich and Ilona Rich Schachter.

Pratt, who famously told this newspaper last year about her own battle with cancer and how the drugs she took to treat it “burnt the shit’’ out of her throat, will be honoured at the black tie event — known as the Angel Ball — for her role as chairman of the Pratt Foundation, which has been a leader in the holistic treatment of cancer patients in Australia. The upcoming Angel Ball event was officially launched last night at New York’s suave Tao Downtown nightclub.

The Ball stands out as one of the highlights of the New York social season, featuring performances by Earth, Wind & Fire, Dave Stewart, Vanessa Amorosi, CeeLo Green and — you guessed it — Jon Stevens, Heloise’s new squeeze following her separation last year from investor husband Alex Waislitz.

No go for Gonksi

Even for Chairman of Everything David Gonski, it was a big week.

Chairman of Everything David Gonski. Picture: Stuart McEvoy/The Australian.

His duties as the chair of Coca-Cola Amatil were to take him and the drinks maker’s high-profile board — which includes Virgin Australia boss John Borghetti, AMP chair Catherine Brenner and the 71-year-old former big cheese of Leighton, Wal King — to Indonesia.

Joko Widodo’s archipelago is one of Coca-Cola Amatil’s biggest markets, and the home of 12,000 of their staff.

But the trip was cancelled. The company assured us a terrorism scare was not the reason for the change.

Whatever the mysterious reason for the change, it meant Gonski was in Australia to watch Shayne Elliott, the CEO of his bank, perform in front of David Coleman’s bank committee.

Bank withdrawal

Over at rival bank, NAB chair Ken Henry (the former head of Treasury) surprised his banking peers with the news that his bank would not be making any donations to either political party.

NAB chair Ken Henry helped look after an endangered wombat colony at Epping Forest Scientific National Park in Queensland during a holiday in 2008.

That puritanical decision — which would never have happened in Michael Chaney’s day — was made at board level.

His CEO Andrew Thorburn was asked about the response to the change from the Coalition and Labor. “I understand they have noted that, and accepted that,” Thorburn said, tersely.

You can bet the poor souls trying to balance the books at Tony Nutt’s cash-strapped Liberal Party are particularly unimpressed.

As for NAB’s rivals following them? No chance — whatever ANZ’s Shayne Elliott might have said off the cuff on Wednesday. Westpac, CBA and ANZ banned political donations years ago. And, unless there is a profound change of mind, they won’t be expanding that ban — NAB-style — to entry fees to political events and fundraising activities.

Those are far too important for their government relations teams. Just you watch them at next month’s Liberal State Council AGM.

Share the love

Two months ago, Malcolm Turnbull chose David Coleman to chair the PM’s new accountability measure for the big four banks: the annual grilling of their bosses in Canberra in front of the House of Representatives Economics Committee.

David Coleman, who is literally the Member for Banks. Picture: Kym Smith.

It has proved to be a good choice — and not just because Coleman is literally the Member for Banks, an electorate in the southwest of Sydney named after James Cook’s botanist Joseph Banks.

Coleman — who in his life before politics was variously a McKinsey analyst, a director of strategy and digital at Nine Entertainment and a director at fender-bending Mark Bouris’s home loan business Yellow Brick Road Holdings — well managed his parliamentary colleagues as they each vied to get their mugs on TV.

The gig, while certainly good for Coleman’s profile, has not been without its personal cost, as revealed on Coleman’s new member interests form.

Gone — as he told us in August, after we first flagged his chairmanship — are his shares in Thorburn’s NAB, which has seen Coleman miss out on the bank’s near 10 per cent price increase over the past two months.

Also offloaded have been Coleman’s shares in Alison Watkins’ Coca-Cola Amatil, Mike Kane’s union busting building group Boral, the Australian steelmaker not in receivership BlueScope, Andy Vesey’s gas business AGL, Peter Gregg’s Primary Health Care, Perpetual tipper Paul Skamvougeras’s preferred insurer QBE and Brendon Grylls’ cash cow Rio Tinto.

A swift end to one of Canberra’s best blue-chip share portfolios — and a sign that Coleman senses greater things in the near future of his parliamentary career.

Switching portfolios

By contrast, colleague Stuart Robert has gone the other way. Roberts has thrown himself into his investment portfolio since he was sacked from the Human Services portfolio amid controversy over a holiday he took to China.

Federal member for Fadden Stuart Robert. Picture: Richard Gosling.

Roberts is a gold bug with stock in Saracen Mineral Holdings, Tyranna Resources, Orinoco Gold, Evolution Mining and Oceana Gold. He’s got stock in market data housing hottie NextDC, lithium plays Kairos Minerals and Galaxy Resources, and stakes in Village Roadshow, Blackmores and retirement village operator Eureka Group. No sulking about his reduced salary for the Member for Fadden.