Exodus at McGrath house of horrors
The bad news just keeps on coming for the real estate business that John McGrath cooked up in his Paddington office back in 1988.
We hear up to 30 of McGrath’s best agents are plotting a mass departure from the listed firm.
Staff, particularly those sad characters who listened to their inspirational boss and bought into the business, have some reason to be unhappy.
Ten months into its listed life, McGrath’s stock closed yesterday at $1.03 — less than half the value of its $2.10 IPO price.
It’s a slump known too well by its major institutional shareholder, Geoff Lloyd’s Perpetual, which holds an 11 per cent stake.
The collapse in value has been the backdrop for a frenzy of departures.
This month the senior trio of Steven Chen, Richard Shalhoub and Matt Lahood took about 50 years’ worth of combined McGrath experience out of the business.
That has focused the minds of many of those left behind.
McGrath was replaced as CEO by Cameron Judson in August. McGrath, now “executive director”, owns 27 per cent of the business, so it hasn’t been a great year for him.
Also gone is chief operating officer Geoff Lucas, who helped pump up the business before the float.
Lucas, fittingly, took his expertise in making things rise to Andrew Connole’s bakery Sonoma.
Mogul’s man moves
There’s also been a notable departure from the Meriton apartment empire of our richest Australian, Harry Triguboff.
To the surprise of many Meriton watchers, long-standing Triguboff loyalist Will Miranda has left the firm.
“Sometimes you need a change,” Miranda told us, adding he is leaving the apartment mogul on good terms. “Harry’s been very good to me.”
The departure brings to an end a working relationship going back a quarter of a century. In the past six years, Miranda worked at Meriton head office. He was most recently “property operations manager”, a role some Meriton staff have characterised as being Harry’s eyes and ears.
Before that Miranda, a trained chef, was a personal assistant to the boss.
It’s been quite a year for Meriton’s 83-year-old founder. In May, Triguboff was crowned Australia’s richest person, his fortune valued at $10.6 billion.
A week before that success, Triguboff tripped over his then four-month-old black poodle Susie and broke his toe. Mo’ money, mo’ problems.
Hot tip from the boss
A week out from the big race, Tabcorp chair Paula Dwyer hasshared her Spring Racing Carnival tips.
At the wagering giant’s AGM in Sydney yesterday, Dwyer said she was tipping Assign in the Emirates Melbourne Cup.
And in the Crown Oaks, the chair is tipping Harlow Gold.
Dwyer is well known for her tipping prowess. And with her recent hot form — most notably getting the board of Harry Boon’s lotteries giant Tatts to agree last week to an $11.3 billion merger — ignore her advice at your peril.
Heff’s beef with baron
The four cattlemen lodging a $386 million rival bid to that by Australian and Chinese billionaires Gina Rinehart and Gui Guo have made much of the fact their swoop on the Kidman cattle empire does not have any FIRB uncertainty.
But that doesn’t mean the four beef patriarchs — Sterling Buntine, Malcolm Harris, Tom Brinkworth and Viv Oldfield — are going to escape scrutiny. Not when they are bidding against such a mighty competitor with such excellent political connections.
And thanks to former rural Liberal senator Bill Heffernan, there is a rich store of mud on Buntine.
Before we quote, it’s worth noting that Heff was on occasion disgracefully off-target when using parliamentary privilege.
Anyway, turning to Hansard in 2013, which records Heffernan’s unease with Buntine’s association with the collapsed managed investment scheme company Great Southern. When it collapsed, McGrathNicol was appointed administrator.
Here is the earthy summary Heff gave to the Rural and Regional Affairs and Transport References Committee on how it worked.
“McGrathNicol knows sweet FA about cattle and so they put in Mr Buntine and his brother-in-law to give them advice,” explained Heff.
“And they had a serious conflict of interest and were being paid for their advice in kind — that is cattle — in some circumstances.”
The Buntines have always disputed suggestions they were in a position to profit from the collapse. That allegation has never been substantiated — not for Heff’s lack of trying.
As he told the committee: “When I asked Mr Buntine and his agent who was valuing and counting the cattle, they hung up.”
With the Buntine and Co bid still to be lodged, expect more mud to fly in coming weeks.
A toast to staying
Now to Bendigo Bank, which as it happens was one of many institutions caught up in the Great Southern collapse.
History was made at the Ulumbarra Theatre yesterday as Bendigo’s long-serving chairman Robert Johanson announced that this would be his last three-year term.
That announcement was accompanied with a dig at the proxy advisers and corporate governance crew, who have become increasingly upset about his expansive tenure.
Johanson finished his chairman’s remarks with some pointed references to the Vahland Drinking Fountain and the legacy of William Vahland, “one of Bendigo’s most prominent founding fathers”.
“Vahland was one of the founding members of the first Bendigo Building Society, now Bendigo and Adelaide Bank,” said Johanson. “He remained on the board for more than 50 years and for 38 years was its chairman and managing director.”
Johanson, by comparison, has been a director of the bank for 26 years and chairman for a mere 10 years. Worth a commemorative Johanson bubbler?
A clear Culleton
Bank bashing West Australian One Nation senator Rod Culleton left Armidale a happy man yesterday.
The case of the $7.50 tow truck key is over. Following the legal advice of Peter King, Culleton pleaded guilty, paid costs of $300 to the truck driver and, most importantly for the continuation of his Senate career, did not have a conviction recorded against him.
“Some days, dog sh.t does stick to your boot and you’ve got to deal with it,” said Culleton over the phone from Leigh Clifford’s Qantas Chairman’s Lounge in Sydney, on his way back to Perth.
Next on his expansive list of court battles is a showdown in the west over the alleged theft of a hire car that was being used by two receivers at a farm at the centre of a foreclosure dispute.
“That one’s got about as much chance of running as a dinosaur fossil,” he said.
The Culleton trial continues.
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