Ex-Tabcorp chair Paula Dwyer tipped for Crown
Could former Tabcorp chair Paula Dwyer be poised to swap her position at November’s Melbourne Cup Carnival from Flemington’s Birdcage to the Winning Post?
Talk in investment circles is swirling that Dwyer, also a former Healthscope chair, is being considered as a candidate to join the heavily depleted ranks of Helen Coonan’s Crown Resorts board.
Dwyer, who turned 60 and retired as Tabcorp chair towards the end of last year, would tick many of the boxes that Coonan would be seeking to satisfy in recruitment of new directors.
Former Howard government minister Coonan is currently running a Crown board that comprises just three other directors due to a boardroom cull following Patricia Bergin’s devastating inquiry into the James Packer-controlled gambling group’s operations.
Out the door in recent months has included Crown chief Ken Barton and non-executive directors Mike Johnston, Guy Jalland, John Poynton, Andrew Demetriou and Harold Mitchell.
That has left Coonan sitting alongside just Jane Halton, Toni Korsanos and John Horvath, with Horvath sticking around only until Coonan can fill a few more seats and as the group awaits probity clearance for newly nominated directorNigel Morrison.
Having served at Tabcorp for more than 15 years, Dwyer is already relaxed and comfortable with the idea of sitting on the board of a company that makes its money from gambling.
She has also jumped through the probity hoops of Australia’s myriad state-based gaming regulators and has years of experience liaising with them, a skill set Crown clearly needs.
And Dwyer is connected, sharing the ANZ board table with former top Canberra mandarin Halton.
Margin Call notes Dwyer may already even have some familiarity with Crown’s inner workings, having been on the ANZ board when the bank flagged to Crown management potential money-laundering issues with two accounts that casino subsidiaries Riverview and Southbank had with the bank, but which Crown execs ignored.
An issue, however, may be some negative perceptions of Dwyer’s long tenure as a Tabcorp director, having been the subject of a heavy protest vote at the company’s 2019 annual meeting.
We shall see.
NRL support
Prime Minister Scott Morrison doesn’t hold back when it comes to his support of his beloved Cronulla Sharks, so too, it would seem, his support of the National Rugby League, which took home $11.5m in JobKeeper payments last year.
In accounts lodged to ASIC just days ago, the NRL and chairman Peter V’landys set out the extent of the financial hit from COVID-19, total revenue for the year dropping by more than $48m while its costs blew out.
As it turns out, relocating entire teams and support staff to COVIDsafe “bubbles” across the country is exactly as costly as it sounds.
The NRL spent $11.4m to run the competition during the pandemic, not including a further $4m in charter and relocation flights — a key factor contributing to the listed Alliance Aviation’s recent profit jump no doubt.
Recall, it was the NRL’s precarious position revealed at the onset of the pandemic that contributed to the ousting of former chief Todd Greenberg (who has since swapped codes to head the Australian Cricketers’ Association) and, following that, his chief financial officer Tony Crawford.
It has been a tough 12 months for V’landys, who also had to wrestle with similar restrictions in his capacity as head of Racing NSW.
At the football HQ, however, V’landys’ board includes a restructuring guru in Tony McGrath, corporate raider in Gary Weiss and “invincible” Wayne Pearce, quite the defence for whatever comes the league’s way this year.
Virgin chief’s landing
The boss of resurrected airline Virgin Australia, Jayne Hrdlicka, looks to be a glass-half-full kind of executive.
Margin Call has learned that just seven days after taking the reins at the Bain Capital-owned airline, which she joined on November 18 last year, Hrdlicka moved to finally close out a multi-million-dollar real estate deal she had struck with fellow businesswoman Patricia Cross just under five years ago.
Hrdlicka is running Virgin from Brisbane, but for several years has called a historic mansion on prestigious Kooyongkoot Road in Melbourne’s upmarket Hawthorn home.
However, the home has been owned by Cross (who was a Qantas director when Hrdlicka ran Jetstar) since 1990, with a mortgage later taken out by Cross on the home with ANZ in 2011.
In July 2016, Hrdlicka entered into a contract with Cross, who has also served on the Tennis Australia board alongside Hrdlicka, to purchase the Hawthorn home, which fittingly comes with a tennis court as well as a pool.
Treasurer Josh Frydenberg lives a little way away and has been said to enjoy a hit with the competitive Tennis Australia chair. The sale price of the mansion was for a cool $13.3m.
Along with that, Hrdlicka slapped a caveat on the property’s title, but the deal does not appear to have been settled. That is until last November, just days after Hrdlicka started at Virgin.
On that same day, Cross paid off her mortgage with Shayne Elliott’s ANZ and ownership officially moved to Hrdlicka, who did not require the help of any mortgage to close the deal.
Happy days.
Pressing the flesh
Tensions are rising in Canberra as pollies prepare to passScott Morrison’s industrial relations reforms.
What better time then for a myriad of top CEOs to descend on the Great Hall for a dinner hosted by Jennifer Westacott and her Business Council of Australia.
Qantas chief Alan Joyce will be among the attendees, fresh from receiving his aviation booster shot, as will Energy Australia’s Catherine Tanna (the subject of the early closure of the Yallourn power station probably off limits), Cochlear’s Dig Howitt and Telstra’s Andy Penn.
It is a recipe for scintillating conversation, especially with keynote speaker Josh Frydenberg leading the room with the Treasurer’s favourite topic — tax cuts.
The halls of Parliament House are set to continue to buzz on Wednesday, but no, not for protests this time around — the big bank CEOs are instead set to quiz Frydenberg, while the Business Council backs up with a breakfast with the opposition.
Nothing like a chat with Albo and a fresh hash brown to aide in any recovery.
Paula Dwyer
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