Colin Bell’s ball out of bounds

Illustration: Peter Nicholson.

Well look at that: the 74-year-old Colin Bell can use email.

And as the recently lodged statement of claim by his former employee Angus Aitken makes clear, the Bell Financial Group chairman uses it to vivid effect.

“Jesus Gus,” Colin allegedly tapped in an email sent at 9.13pm on Tuesday, May 24, “your ANZ comment was like you teed up my nuts and had a full swing with your driver.”

South Park’s Eric Cartman couldn’t have put it better.

So what exactly was it that broke Colin’s balls?

Aitken’s claim suggests it was more than frustration over allegedly sexist commentary about ANZ’s incoming chief financial officer, former investment banker Michelle Jablko.

Aitken’s lawyers claim that two “major transactions” involving Shayne Elliott’s ANZ and Bell Potter were under way at the time of his dismissal.

We can reveal that one of those “major transactions” is Bell’s ongoing interest in buying ANZ’s online broking arm. That’s the business formerly known as E*TRADE Australia, recently rebranded ANZ Share Investing.

ANZ is reviewing its wealth portfolio and, naturally, parts of the business deemed non-essential may be sold off.

We understand that Bell has made its interest in the acquisition of ANZ Share Investing well known to Elliott’s shop.

The addition of ANZ’s online broking business would increase the volume of trading going through Colin’s online share portal Bell Direct and allow it to reduce its usage fees. All the better to compete with Ian Narev’s rival CommSec.

It’s the sort of acquisition that could help Bell Potter remain relevant in today’s competitive equities trading scene.

The trading world has changed immeasurably since Colin founded Bell Commodities in 1970, as the golfing enthusiast might tell you — just as soon as he’s out of that meeting.

Tweet time

Feared defamation lawyer Mark O’Brien is the legal brain behind Angus Aitken’s audacious attempt to sue ANZ boss Shayne Elliott and his chief mouthpiece Paul Edwards over a tweet.

So it’s interesting to discover that O’Brien seems to be about as proficient on the social media network as Aitken’s former septuagenarian boss, Colin Bell.

In the statement of claim lodged in the Supreme Court on Friday, O’Brien has cocked up the time the infamous Edwards tweet was sent.

It’s almost enough reason for Mark O’Brien to sue Twitter’s boss, Jack Dorsey. Picture: Stuart McEvoy for The Australian.

O’Brien writes it was sent “(a)t or about 7.37pm on 24 May 2016”. It was actually sent at 12.37pm the next day, a Wednesday — which puts it comfortably on the other side of the Tuesday evening phone call Elliott made to Bell.

As we’ve written before, it’s hard to believe that the tweet (even if it was “liked” by Edwards’s boss) had much to do with Colin’s decision to part with Aitken.

But, nonetheless, it sits at the heart of this strange case.

So how did O’Brien get tripped up? It seems O’Brien was a victim of a glitch in Twitter’s time stamp function — the same one that caused Alec Baldwin somuch trouble back in 2013 when his wife was accused of live tweeting at actor James Gandolfini’s funeral service. She wasn’t.

It’s almost enough reason to sue Twitter’s boss, Jack Dorsey.

Busy Packer

The demerger of Crown Resorts isn’t the only investment that has occupied the minds of James Packer and his chief lieutenant Rob Rankin in recent months.

Packer’s Consolidated Press Holdings is part of a consortium that in recent weeks took its shareholding in peer-to-peer lender Society One to about 38 per cent.

The heavy hitting consortium also includes WA billionaire Kerry Stokes and Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp, which is held together via S. One Holding Company and trades out of Packer’s Park Street bunker (presumably until they relocate to their new offices in ANZ’s Sydney tower).

The group’s participation in the now Jason Yetton-led Society One’s $25 million capital raising has been followed by some notable additions to its board.

Packer had been represented by his numbers man Michael Johnston and head of investments Brad Kady. They have now been joined by Rankin as a director.

Stokes had his numerate Brian O’Donnell looking after his interests, and has now also added Seven West chief Tim Worner and his legal mind Bruce McWilliam, while News has added community publishing chief Brett Clegg and The Australian’s boss Nicholas Gray.

It’s all held together by ASX director Dominic Stevens.

Exchanging places

Speaking of Dominic Stevens, he’s the same man who has been tipped to replace Elmer Funke Kupper as chief executive of the Australian Securities Exchange.

By way of background, Stevens was previously the chief executive officer of the ASX-listed annuities behemoth Challenger.

Back in November 2011, the then 46-year-old rocked the market — not to mention many of his loyal Challenger staff — by suddenly resigning after less than four years in the top job.

A clear reason for his abrupt retreat “from corporate life” was lacking from the ASX statement that announced it.

Apparently Stevens, a spreadsheet fiend, wanted to “spend more time with his family”. And we have learned Stevens, his wife and three kids set off for an eight-month world trip that started in June 2012, after he had eased his successor Brian Benari into the role.

But no doubt ASX chair Rick Holliday-Smith will have explored the ins and outs of all this thoroughly ahead of any Stevens listed restoration.

The last thing Holliday-Smith needs is another surprise after the shock of Elmer’s departure.

Coalition splinters

Four days.

That’s all it took for the brave new retail shareholders’ Utopia to crumble, as an attempt by smaller investors to form a bloc in lithium success story Pilbara Minerals fell to pieces over the weekend.

A group of dozens of passionate investors in the Tony Leibowitz-chaired Pilbara had been brought together in a loose coalition through market chat forum HotCopper, led by forum users OzBlue and SuperNinja (who, in the real world, go by the names of Bill Lambert and Michael Langford).

The group lodged a substantial shareholder notice late on Tuesday last week after the collective scale of their combined holding exceeded 5 per cent of Pilbara’s stock.

The move was met with mirth within Pilbara but was hailed in the AFR as a bold vanguard of Australian shareholder activism.

But what followed was more Lord of the Flies than Return of the Jedi.

Faster than you can say “pass the conch”, the HotCopper group descended into bickering and sniping.

Pass the conch

By Monday morning Lambert and Langford issued a notice to the ASX confirming that they had withdrawn from the group.

Exactly why the group existed and just what it hoped to achieve still seems ambiguous. There was some talk from the group that it was about preventing the company from accepting an underpriced takeover. Although there’s been no sign of any offer whatsoever to date.

If its aim was to put pressure on Pilbara’s management, that seems a bit unfair — they’ve taken the stock from 4c in May last year to as high as 80c a share last month. The group’s shenanigans don’t appear to have done anything to boost Pilbara’s share price. It has been the worst performer of the ASX’s big lithium plays over the past week.

Dutton’s luxury visit

Who said the mining boom was over? Last week we brought you details of Malcolm Turnbull’s $10,000-a-head lunch with Perth’s business elite.

Now we can reveal that Immigration Minister Peter Dutton late yesterday was flying to one of Western Australia’s most spectacular properties, Maitraya Private Retreat, to launch the local election campaign of Rick Wilson, the Liberal Party’s candidate for the vast seat of O’Connor.

We’re not sure who was paying. The market rates certainly wouldn’t be cheap to hire that slice of the beachfront estate, which has its own airstrip and helipad.

It’s a spot worthy of a pop star. Indeed, Lady Gaga stayed there in 2010 and even she described the oasis as “beautiful”. Unfortunately for Dutton, he didn’t get the chance for a sleepover. The minister was due to fly out of the nearby town of Albany last night after doing the honours at the campaign launch.

Meanwhile in Sydney, about 20 people gathered in a CBD boardroom last night for the $3000-a-head fundraising dinner with former PM Tony Abbott we flagged last week. He’s a servant to the party.