Deakin a ‘no comment’ on Scale’s generous gifts; Westfield’s LA venture consigned to the bin
Deakin University seems lost for words when it comes to the millions allegedly lavished on it by Scale Facilitation boss David Collard, who it seems is a fan of very big cheques.
Readers of this column may be familiar with the Collard story, of his World Trade Centre views and seeming endless capacity for big promises published in the Financial Review.
Scale’s offices were recently raided by the Australian Federal Police and staff from the Australian Taxation Office, while Collard continues to wax lyrical about staff being paid what’s owed and his battery gigafactory in Geelong coming in to land.
This column is aware some investors have been tapped to see if they’re interested in opening their wallets for Collard to help him out of his problem.
But readers have questioned whether signs of Scale’s financial problems have been in very large print for some time now.
Geelong locals in the orbit of Deakin University may be familiar with the handover of a very large cheque by Collard’s dad Kevin Collard in July 2021.
The audience heard Collard was lavishing the money on behalf of his SaniteX Global, a leading provider of health solutions.
A similar sight was repeated in March this year when Scale Facilitation chief of staff James Fatone handed over another $10m cheque to Deakin on behalf of Collard.
It is all rather curious for Collard’s people to be handing over money as he seems to have a number of folks chasing him for what’s theirs. Scale and Collard did not respond for a request to comment.
When asked what happened with the money, Deakin senior media flak Andy Newton told this column “we will not have anything to add to your query”.
Where’s the money?
Burning cash
Australia seems to have no trouble churning out battery companies with questionable activities, with the latest numbers from ASX-listed battery-meets-graphite miner Magnis Energy Technology showing the effect of shovelling $46.8m into the furnace of commercial enterprise.
In its latest quarterly update, Magnis revealed to investors it had banked nothing, nada, zip in revenues from customers.
Magnis has been spending big on its battery dreams in upstate New York without pausing for breath to start actually making some money before dumping a bunch of cash on its planned graphite mine in Tanzania and a battery anode site.
The spendthrifts at Magnis have been so keen on taking money and directly applying it to a fire the company warned it had just over three months of funding left in this latest set of accounts.
However, Magnis noted there had been some serious spending in the “abnormal quarter”, suggesting there might be a bit less cash to throw around in FY24.
Long-suffering investors have been treated to an absolute drubbing as the share price tanked on the back of a string of raisings, with shares down 76 per cent in the last six months to 10c on Friday.
Sales long promised from Imperium3NY are still nowhere to be seen, despite repeated assurances the company would seal the deal on certification of its batteries and promises from
Magnis chair Frank Poullas of big money soon.
Mr Poullas for his part has been a beneficiary of Magnis and its related-party payments thanks to his consulting deal, plus the IT contracts between Magnis and his firm Strong Solutions.
In the last quarter Magnis handed out $920,000 to its related parties.
Through this wonderful year of spending Magnis has shed a number of senior figures, including most recently its CEO David Taylor who put in his notice last month.
Poullas remains chair of Magnis, a role he’s held since 2010.
Despite the chaos nothing much seems to have changed at Magnis, despite allegations the firm was dealing with drug lord Hakan Arif, who met both Poullas and Magnis director Peter Tsegas in Istanbul, and claims of a buried audit of the company’s accounts which found it was allegedly paying for cigarettes and booze for Tsegas in his role as political liaison with the Tanzanian government.
Magnis has taken to the ASX to previously deny it had dealings with Arif, warning it had “retained Queen’s Counsel and senior lawyers to represent it”.
Smoking ruins
In another tale of market mayhem our friends over at Cann Group have revealed a wash out on their attempt to raise $11.7m as investors turned their nose up at the loss-making sticky icky grower.
In its latest set of accounts Cann Group, which grows and sells medicinal cannabis, revealed it had smoked $21.6m in the last year.
An attempt to raise $11.7m from investors in June at 12c a share, fell well short with just $4.46m changing hands.
The puff may have gone out of cannabis.
Change of fortune
Back in 2004 it was a happier and more optimistic time. It was a time before the terms Global Financial Crisis or Covid-19 were seared into the world’s collective consciousness, and a spritely Sir Frank Lowy and his extended family were taking the Westfield shopping brand to the world.
The merger, demerger and merger again of all the Westfield ASX-listed satellites is too complex to detail here, but suffice it to say back then in the early 2000s the Westfield America Trust had 66 shopping centres across America with a then gross asset value of $US10.9bn.
In that year some bright spark in the company decided to put on the cover of the Westfield America Trust annual report an artist‘s impression of the $US410m redevelopment of the Westfield San Francisco Centre.
It was like some grand Norman Rockwell painting, with clean-cut, well dressed Americans – mostly all white – walking through the soon-to-be-built Westfield San Francisco shopping centre. Here was a young white couple chatting, there another American (also white) with his arms around his sweetheart, presumably out on a date night perhaps and enjoying some of the local retail vendors.
Talk about making the wrong call. This week just down the road, as Twitter began removing its brand from its building as Elon Musk changed the name to X, the ‘‘Westfield’’ signage was chiselled off the shopping mall and thrown in the dumpster as Westfield and its partner walked away from the downtown San Francisco site.
Once one of the largest shopping centres in California, it has, along with the rest of the city of San Francisco, slipped into an abyss of crime and open drug use.
The artist’s impression in the 2004 annual report of well-dressed consumers has been replaced by the very real images this week of drug addicts shooting up at the entrance to the former Westfield mall. Nearby, as shown by some US news services, another person lay unconscious just a few feet from the entrance. This is not unique to the former Westfield store, with San Francisco facing an explosion in crime and drugs.
But the smart money had left years earlier, well before Covid-19 and the fentanyl epidemic. Lowy and his family sold the Westfield business to the Europe-based Unibail-Rodamco in June 2018, so now it’s their problem.
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