The former My Kitchen Rules celebrity chef Pete Evans and his wife, model turned nutritionist Nicola Robinson, seem set to make Byron Bay their permanent home.
The move hardly comes as a shock, as Evans is soon to open a healing clinic in The Habitat, Byron’s swanky new commercial precinct which has attracted health and beauty outlets.
Evans has had an acreage in the hinterland for six years, where he’s spent most of the pandemic. It is a 10 hectare Round Mountain Farm, near Pottsville, between Byron and the Gold Coast.
He’s recently had NG Farah agents Peter Goulding and Theo Karangis give a price appraisal for his Sydney base. Margin Call gleans the two-level Malabar home, which was only constructed about 18 months ago, will be listed soon with $3.2m hopes.
It comes with a ping-pong room given the whole family are dedicated players.
The grounds have exotic gardens that feature aloe trees and a magnesium pool.
Even before COVID-19 hit, Sydney was losing more residents to NSW regions than the other way around.
Notwithstanding his questionable thoughts through the years, standby for Evans to become the poster boy for the renewed #WFB — Work From Byron — push.
Legal float
There might soon be another law firm listed on the ASX.
Whispers among Melbourne’s legal fraternity suggest that the dynamic HWL Ebsworth may soon seek to float.
Nothing formalised yet, but there have been suggestions the firm considered the proposal after having valuations of the firm lob at over $1bn, perhaps even $1.5bn.
Any decision would need its partners, around 270 of them, to agree.
Now credited as the largest partnership of Australian law firms, the law firm dates back to the 1890s. It was long known as Ebsworth and Ebsworth and got its HWL initials when teaming up with Home Wilkinson Lowry in 2008.
The firm has 1400 employees including 800 legal staff and 343 support staff across every capital city. Four years ago it had 205 partners, 505 other legal staff and 319 support staff.
Led by managing partner Juan Martinez, it regularly represents the top 20 ASX companies, and often assists in the floats of newbies. Last year it advised Whispir on its debut. It recently advised on the Russian miner Nornickel selling its interest in the Honeymoon Well Project to BHP Nickel West.
HWL Ebsworth took top spot in the latest Refinitiv (previously Thomas Reuters) table, having advised the highest number of 2019 equity capital market deals in Australia, a total of $1.1bn.
Any float would test the solidarity of the partnership, especially given the fate of pioneering listed legal firms including Salter & Gordon which went public at some peril.
For a short time last month the firm was the centre of a coronavirus outbreak, after six staff tested positive. The firm stressed it had been operating within Department of Health and Human Services guidelines, but it was singled out by Premier Daniel Andrews.
“We did see a firm that’s become a bit famous in recent days where they decided that they wouldn’t allow their staff to work from home, when clearly the vast majority of that work can be done from home,” Andrews said, without naming the firm.
A word from Gonski
ANZ chairman David Gonski will be the next guest for Conexus Financial’s Redefining Leadership series.
Gonski will speak on stewardship in a crisis, as he explores how governance structures can evolve and what is needed to make leadership more impactful.
The discussion is expected to touch on artificial intelligence, technological advances and the role for trusted media. Gonski, who also chairs the Art Gallery of NSW, will additionally speak on the role philanthropy and the arts can play during a recession.
The online event will take place on August 25.
Cushioning the blow
AMP has given some relief to its beleaguered chief executive Francesco De Ferrari with the issue of 408,164 shares valued at just over $628,000. The shares were “acquired without a cash payment by the director as part of his remuneration”, the latest corporate filings show.
Following the share issue De Ferrari is sitting on 1,428,000 shares, worth some $2.14m. De Ferrari’s statutory pay last year totalled $13m thanks to share rights, options and restricted shares.
His wife Elisabetta De Ferrari-Wicki recently bought Weeroona, a $7.5m Woollahra consular belt trophy home and quickly lobbed $650,000 renovations plans by architect Michael Robilliard with Woollahra Council. There’s no registered mortgage.
Food for thought
There’s one mostly latent anxiety that executive travellers will be seeking assurance about when Qantas chief Alan Joyce announces their full year results on Thursday.
Forget the huge fall in its EBITDAR and the prospect of no final dividend, our stay-at-home business leaders will want to know whether celebrity chef Neil Perry survives under Joyce’s revised post-COVID recovery plans.
Perry has been with the airline for 23 years. And despite his recent retirement from Rockpool Group, Perry has been keen to remain the chef in chief when chairman Richard Goyder reopens the Chairmans’ Lounges.
The lounges were set to welcome back travellers from August, but now September has been pencilled in.
“It’s impossible to imagine food and wine on Qantas without Neil’s influence,” Qantas boss Joyce once said.
The pony-tailed Perry been dishing up the steak sandwich ever since his appointment by the then Qantas chief, the late James Strong, in 1997.
The Qantas loyalty contrasts with Luke Mangan’s strained relationship with Virgin Airlines, where until the collapse, he had been on deck for 17 years. Mangan has claimed around $400,000 in the collapse with Virgin 2.0 unlikely to keep him on.
Smart purchase
The longtime Tuscany home of the late expatriate artist Jeffrey Smart has been relisted for sale by its subsequent Australian owners.
The 600-year-old Tuscan villa was sold five years ago following Smart’s death in 2013 aged 91.
It was art dealer Philip Bacon who secured the mystery buyer of Posticcia Nuova which had been bought in the early 1970s by Smart and his partner Ermes De Zan.
The current vendor is seeking €3.2m ($5.29m).
The stone farmhouse in the Chianti Hills, near the town of Greve, and about 1½ hours from Florence, has 15 hectares of gardens, with a hectare of agricultural land.
The income from the olive grove, in a good harvest year, is around €10,000, plus there is a small return on eggs and vegetables.
There is a caretaker at the property — as the owners do not live in Italy — working five days a week plus a couple of hours on the weekend looking after the chickens.
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