CSL chief Paul Perreault buys mountain top plot in Utah
He’s a key cog in the nation’s rapidly ramping-up vaccine program, but as it turns out CSL chief executive Paul Perreault is keeping far from the unfolding delta dramas.
While huge swathes of the country remain under tight lockdown restrictions, and his company churns out millions of doses of the all-redeeming AstraZeneca vaccine from its Melbourne facility, the US native has been watching it all from his home in Park City, Utah.
It is there, too, that the 63-year-old has also recently completed a more personal transaction, signing the deed to a new mountaintop plot on Dream Ridge, billed as “the most spectacular homesite ever offered in The Colony”.
Perreault and wife Beverly paid $US5m for the 6.4 hectare property in December last year, one of just two “Dream Lots” in the exclusive White Pine Canyon estate with exceptional ski access and 360 degree views.
Marketing material describes a multitude of outdoor snow sport and hiking activities in the vicinity, noting its location is just 22 miles from Heber Valley Airport, making it “perfect for private jet travel”.
That is sure to come in handy for the usually high-flying executive, who pre-pandemic, was known to be on the road up to 250 days a year.
Covid has, of course, cut those travel stats down significantly, including keeping the chief – this country’s highest-paid executive – away from Australia since the start of the pandemic almost two years ago.
Those close to the CSL boss say he’s itching to get back to the company’s HQ in Melbourne – although not, it seems, enough for him to endure the two weeks of hotel quarantine required for him to enter the country.
Howard Springs sure is no match for an alpine ski chalet.
It is worth nothing, however, that his fellow pharma boss Pascal Soriot, of Cambridge-based AstraZeneca, who for just a few months sat on CSL’s board, put himself through the two-week ordeal in Sydney late last year, when he put the finishing touches on the group’s $39bn acquisition of Alexion and completed key parts of the vaccine deal with the University of Oxford.
Soriot has plenty more reasons to make the sacrifice, of course. His family and property portfolio are largely based in Australia, including a new $8m house in Mosman he purchased only months ago.
That is more than we can say for Perreault, who in his seven years commuting to Melbourne as CSL chief is still yet to dip his toe in the local property market.
Must be something about all that alpine air.
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Laundy raises the bar
Millionaire former federal parliamentarian Craig Laundy was back out and about participating in the national discourse on Wednesday as his home state of NSW continued to suffer in lockdown.
Having returned to run the family pub empire as chief executive of Laundy Hotels, the one-time Liberal representative of the good people of Reid was adding his voice to the call for mandatory vaccinations, as was NSW ALP leader Chris Minns.
Nothing like an unfolding pandemic to unite both sides of politics – helped, no doubt, by Laundy’s former senior director of government relations, James Cullen, who as of June has been Minns’ chief of staff.
It’s not the first time that Laundy, who is scion to the fortune built by his father Arthur Laundy, has got cosy with the left in recent times.
Last month, the Sydney businessman – whose watering holes include the Woolwich Pier Hotel, the Woolloomooloo Bay Hotel and the Quarryman’s Hotel in Pyrmont – quietly slipped onto the board of hospitality industry super fund Hostplus, which has in the order of $66bn in funds under management.
Laundy’s arrival follows the exit of Whitehaven Coal chair Mark Vaile from the Hostplus boardroom table amid a backlash over his links to the coal industry.
Just a couple of months ago, Vaile had been set to take up the role of chancellor of Newcastle University, but that appointment was pulled four weeks later amid pressure from staff, students and potential donors to the university who were concerned over his involvement in the fossil fuel industry.
Laundy seems to have passed the Hostplus taste test, though, as has enduring Tabcorp boss David Attenborough, who has joined the fund as a director too.
Attenborough was meant to be leaving the gaming and wagering group but is still hanging about ahead of a potential float of the group’s wagering business later this year.
Laundy and Attenborough were launched onto the fund’s board on the recommendation of the Australian Hotels Association as employer representatives.
Men of the people, to be sure.
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Crown slips further
It was Crown Resorts’ numbers man Alan McGregor’s turn in the (virtual) torture chair on Wednesday at the unfolding royal commission investigation in Perth into billionaire James Packer’s gaming empire.
Kiwi-born McGregor, who’s been with Crown for more than eight years and took over as CFO in August last year, was appearing live from Melbourne, but appeared to forget his glasses, asking repeatedly over the day for documents to be enlarged for his perusal.
McGregor’s memory was hit and miss too as he was probed by counsel assisting the commission Patricia Cahill SC on Crown’s now notorious Riverbank Investments and Southbank Investments corporate vehicles and accompanying bank accounts. There were too many “I don’t recall”-type answers for Margin Call to tally.
Things got really uncomfortable, however, when Cahill started pressing a reluctant McGregor to name names on just who was responsible for allowing money laundering to occur through the companies’ bank accounts.
“It happened on all our watch,” he tried, before trying to get away with listing job titles and working groups that were responsible.
But Cahill was having none of it.
“I just want names,” she demanded, leaving McGregor with no choice but to point the bone directly at his colleagues.
But how about this? McGregor managed to name only executives who are no longer in the employ of Crown, pinging former legal boss Joshua Preston, ex-Australian resorts chief Barry Felstead, past CEOs Ken Barton and Rowen Craigie, as well as former Perth finance exec Craig Spence.
And “myself”, he added, which we don’t think augers that well.
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Taxing time ahead
Meantime, it’ll be a tense few days ahead for the Helen Coonan-chaired Crown Resorts as it awaits a final report from professional services firm Ernst & Young into whether the company has underpaid casino tax to the West Australian government.
McGregorwas asked at the end of commission proceedings on Wednesday whether any work had been done on whether there’d been an underpayment of tax in the west, as was revealed to have occurred in Victoria by Ray Finkelstein’s royal commission there.
McGregor revealed that he had in recent days seen a draft report by E&Y on Crown’s tax in the west, adding that he expected a final report within “days” or “the week”.
We bet Neville Owen and his fellow commissioners can’t wait.
Wesfarmers’ Catch killed off as boss swans in Switzerland
Rob Scott was conspicuous by his absence as yet another of Wesfarmers’ dud investments was put to the sword but why he was schmoozing at the Davos world forum is a head scratcher.
CBA floats sale of pub baron’s boat
Jon Adgemis probably has bigger things on his mind than the loss of his lifestyle trappings, but if you’re in the market for a luxury yacht then the Commonwealth Bank has a deal waiting for you.