Crown AGM: Jewels in the Crown, or rough diamonds?

Peter Nicholson Margin Call cartoon for 21-10-2015. Version: (Original) COPYRIGHT: The Australian's artists each have different copyright agreements in place regarding re-use of their work in other publications. Please seek advice from the artists themselves or the Managing Editor of The Australian regarding re-use.

Punters tucked inside Crown’s dark, loving arms were oblivious to the corporate heavies amassed in the casino’s Garden Rooms yesterday as its directors gathered ahead of today’s annual meeting.

Despite relinquishing the chairmanship of his company in August, an immaculately groomed James Packer was one of the first to arrive, with an assistant that looked remarkably like Crown’s mysterious Mr Fixit Ishan Ratnam.

Executive director John Alexander didn’t need a tie. which would only have restricted the veteran media man’s purposeful clip. Former AFL boss Andrew Demetriou was another early arrival.

Crown boss Rowan Craigie was similarly efficient with his designer trolley bag, while school principal Rowena Danziger was practical as she arrived alone in flat black slip-on shoes.

It takes a cast of thousands to run a Crown board meeting, with security, minions and caterers on hand. Crown’s hotel manager Peter Crinis was happy to front.

Packer saved his warmest welcome for Harold Mitchell, leaning in to vigorously shake the adman’s hand and effusing, “hello mate”.

Former Qantas boss Geoff Dixon was also sans tie, walking in with just minutes to spare with former Liberal pollie Helen Coonan — unmissable in lolly pink jacket and big hair.

Packer’s gals

Amid the work, it can’t be easy for Packer to maintain the strong relationships he enjoys with the myriad women in his jetset life.

Whether floating on the Med, breaking bread in New York or stepping out for charity back in Oz, Packer always has one of his women alongside.

In return for his bikini model ex-wife Jodhi Meares playing the part of domestic handbag at Kerry Stokes’ Seven Telethon in Perth on the weekend, Packer reciprocated by modelling one of her The Upside sweaters aboard his jet, with the shot going straight to social media.

Back on the east coast, mum Ros is so proud her son and daughter Gretel, 49, have settled the split of dad Kerry’s billions without public fuss.

On Monday night the siblings were out to be snapped sharing smiles and a special glass of water at Neil Perry’s Rockpool.

Stateside, Packer’s new love MariahCarey is happy directing a Christmas movie in Cincinnati, courtesy of Packer’s RatPac.

Meantime, the LA-based mother of Packer’s three children, Erica Baxter, is taking no chances with her finances.

She has enlisted tech investor and former PBL director Daniel Petre as a director of her Cheetah B vehicle as she forges ahead with her life post-Packer.

Cayman capers

The Packers prefer the Bahamas, their lieutenant Guy Jalland camps out on Antigua’s Jabberwocky Beach, but the Cayman Islands have been occupying PM Malcolm Turnbull. His latest Caribbean plunge might even give him a stake in corporate plays at home.

PM T has now told the house of reps his investment in Caymanian fund Elbrook is no more — “fund closed by manager and investment returned” is the cryptic notation.

But the Turnbulls are still Caymaniacs, with wife Lucy in another fund, the $US235 million Orange Capital Offshore. After pumping in at least $US1m Lucy joins an elite club — prior to its most recent capital raising, there were but 30 investors.

Mal’s form is vague on when Lucy invested, saying only “prior to September 14”, but the earliest possible date was July 31, when it opened its latest funding round.

Orange Capital is an activist investor run by Daniel Lewis, formerly of Citigroup. and loves to turf out underperforming execs. It has a record of picking fights in Australia, helping to push the Charter Hall Office Fund to privatise in 2012. Might Mal’s money motivate many management movements?

ASIC’s asset

Greg Medcraft’s ASIC has brought out the big guns in its Victorian Supreme Court case against former AWB execs Trevor Flugge and Peter Geary, with fundie guru Andrew Sisson of Balanced Equity Management to give evidence today.

ASIC is trying to ping the pair for breaching their duties to AWB over kickbacks to Saddam Hussein in the early 2000s.

Sisson shot to fame in 2007 when he and UBS’s Paul Fiani voted their stakes in Qantas against a takeover by a consortium chaired by Margaret Jackson and made up of Macquarie, Allco, TPG and Onex, scuttling the bid.

Boardroom face Sisson is no stranger to court, having appeared for ASIC at least once before, in a insider trading case against Citigroup, also in 2007.

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