Crown Sydney chief Peter Crinis plots his exit strategy
The old art of misdirection: while all eyes are firmly on Crown Resorts’ Melbourne operations and venue chief Xavier Walsh at the unfolding Melbourne royal commission, chief of Crown Sydney Peter Crinis is himself more quietly making some moves.
Recall Crinis was elevated to the role of chief at the Sydney venue, and head of Crown hotels more broadly, ahead of the official (non-gaming) launch of Barangaroo in early 2021.
A big move for the Melbourne local, after spending more than 20 years in various roles with the James Packer-backed casino group in his home state, including a term as chief operating officer under Walsh.
Just six months into his tenure, however, it seems there’s still plenty keeping him tied to the southern capital, not just the $3.2m classic Edwardian cottage in Malvern East he bought with wife Sally back in 2017.
A new corporate entity, Anchor Consulting Co, was only registered last month. The 54-year-old is the only director, based out of the couple’s four-bed, two-bath home.
With Gladys Berejiklian on Friday pushed to introduce even stricter restrictions across Greater Sydney, is it any wonder he’s keeping his options open?
Crown’s camp maintains that Crinis continues to work in the role of chief of Sydney and the broader hotel arm, though just which city he resides in remains a little grey.
All signs point to Melbourne, especially given he still is on Dan Andrews’ tourism board at Visit Victoria alongside the likes of Jayco caravan magnate Gerry Ryan, former Collingwood president Eddie McGuire and chaired by lawyer and NGV president Janet Whiting.
Events manager wife Sally too has plenty of reasons to stay down south. Her Stella & Co business, which she started after more than 10 years at Crown Melbourne too, is much more likely to snag business in the city as it finally eases all restrictions.
Despite his lengthy tenure, Crinis has so far escaped being dragged into any of Crown’s several inquiries, rating just one mention in Patricia Bergin’s final report regarding a 2018 trip he took with then chairman John Alexander to scope out hotel restaurants in New York and London.
He doesn’t rate a mention among key management personnel in Crown’s reporting, but you’d have to hope any exit would also include a fair chunk in a long-service payout.
Price of justice
There’s more to Sydney’s legal set than just the pursuit of justice it seems.
Go figure.
Such is the conundrum for alleged NAB fraudster Helen Rosamond, who despite once holding a place in the centre of the Sydney Eastern suburbs, now finds herself unable to land even the most affordable senior legal counsel in her upcoming courtroom showdown.
Rosamond’s July trial was delayed in June after her lawyers were unable to find a senior counsel who could take her case with the funds set aside by Legal Aid.
In an update to her case in Sydney’s Downing Centre courts on Friday, Ms Rosamond’s solicitor Arthur Aguirre told the court despite calling almost every game in town he’d not been able to secure a senior counsel to take Rosamond’s case.
In June Aguirre said he’d already approached Sir Owen Dixon Chambers and Samuel Griffiths Chambers, and none could take her case.
Since then Aguirre has had no luck.
“The situation is we have made further inquiries as to junior counsel in the complex crime panel of Legal Aid I have been able to obtain names,” he told the court from his Blackheath home.
But Justice Dina Yehia SC was flummoxed, telling the court she couldn’t understand why no one would take up the case.
“Are all senior counsel in Sydney occupied in the second half of next year?” she asked.
Aguirre said the tight budget set by Legal Aid made it almost impossible to find someone to take up the tough fight ahead for Rosamond for so little – coming up against a brief of more than 260,000 pages to date does have that effect.
Legal Aid had $940 to fund Ms Rosamond’s defence on the condition she pay $1150 to supplement it.
“Then you’ll have to get a senior junior,” Justice Yehia said.
The Potts Point burgher, who once presided over rivers of gold flowing from her events business The Human Group, had her assets frozen by the bank in the early days of the investigation in 2019.
Those millions would really come in handy right about now.
Myer’s trial by fire
Now that retail billionaire Solomon Lew is back breathing down the necks of the JoAnne Stephenson-chaired Myer Holdings board, just who will be the unlucky directors forced to face a shareholder vote on their re-election when time rolls around for the department store group’s annual meeting?
Lew this week bumped up his stake in Myer to just under 16 per cent and is turning the screws on what he describes as Myer’s “emaciated” board and underperforming management, led by imported boss John King.
Lew is calling for a spill of the entire minimalist four-member Myer board (its constitution allows for a maximum of 12), and on Friday called in the lawyers to gain access to the retailer’s share register.
Interim chair Stephenson earlier this week bent a little to offer the billionaire board representation, but Lew has maintained he’ll be satisfied with nothing less than seeing the back of the entire board.
But if Stephenson holds firm, it’s likely that only two directors will actually have their feet held to the election fire.
Longest-serving Myer director David Whittle, an advertising exec who joined at the end of 2015, is due for re-election, having last been voted for by long-suffering investors at the group’s 2018 meeting.
Myer’s constitution dictates that two directors need to be subject to a vote. That means a decision will need to be made between Stephenson and her board colleague Jacquie Naylor, with both women last put before investors at Myer’s 2019 AGM. Note that Stephenson only took over from former Myer chair Garry Hounsell just before last year’s virtual AGM after Hounsell resigned under extreme pressure from the Lew camp over Myer’s chronic underperformance.
Nine months later and there is still no word on a more permanent replacement.
If Stephenson faces the shareholder vote, Myer may just find itself without yet another chair, creating a potentially chaotic scenario that surely the group is keen to avoid.
That leaves Naylor to face the shareholder music.
Lew’s 16 per cent of issued capital and all those parcels of unmarketable Myer shares that retail investors can’t sell thanks to the massive decline in the share price but can vote will likely go a long way towards seeing Whittle and possibly Naylor off.
Clock’s ticking.
The Cat’s luxury lair raided by corporate cop
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The Price is right for Rinehart
Gina Rinehart praised the Coalition’s Jacinta Nampijinpa Price, urged the ADF to shift to Darwin and chastised unacclimatised city folk, in a recorded address to the Institute of Public Affairs.