FMRS Advisory opened by ex-Andrews staff

Lissie Ratcliff, Daniel Andrews' former director of communications has started up an advisory firm with some ex-teammates.

In the Socialist Republic of Danistan, as Victoria was known for a while, there were few leadership staffers known to be more influential in the politburo of Dan Andrews’ office.

We speak of the former premier’s chief of staff Lissie Ratcliff — dubbed at one point the second most powerful person in Victoria, behind the chairman, of course — but not to be forgotten either would be her deputy, Jessie McCrone, their strategist Ben Foster and media director Adam Sims, currently of IFM Investors where he’s juggling comms.

Well, it’s been six months since Andrews resigned and those trusted advisers were cast off to fend for themselves in the political wilderness (namely Ratcliff and McCrone; the others had gone by then).

But, now it looks like they’re all back and regrouping to play out the usual second chapter of ex-staffers everywhere.

Yes, they’re launching an advisory shop, and no, we clearly don’t have enough in this country already.

Calling themselves FMRS Advisory (an initialism of their surnames) the sales pitch is an offering of pretty much every available trick to be practised in the dark arts: strategy, digital campaigns, crisis communications, business transformations, etc.

The only game they’re refusing to play is lobbying, which is a bit sad considering everyone in Jacinta Allan’s cabinet is basically a mate to them, or a partner in Ratcliff’s case.

She’s been with Housing Minister Harriet Shing for years.

Lissie Ratcliff and Harriet Shing. Picture: Facebook

And, look, we jest, but they’re clearly intent on running an egalitarian regime inside FMRS, the firm vowing to maintain a 50-50 gender split and a flat structure with no defined leader and everyone bearing the same title of managing partner. We’re all equal!

Still, the talking head on the prepared statement was Ratcliff’s only, so some are clearly more equal than others.

“We think the timing is right for a firm like ours,” she said. “Organisations need to maintain social license (sic) from their customers, shareholders, governments and the broader public, and the right advice at the right time can be the difference between success and failure,” Ms Ratcliff concluded.

Close partnership

Small world over at Myer, which appointed Olivia Wirth as its incoming executive chairman last week.

New Myer executive chairman Olivia Wirth. Picture: John Feder

That was only a couple of days after news emerged of the department store appointing KPMG to help divest three of its clothing brands — namely Sass & Bide, Marcs and David Lawrence.

Paul Howes. Picture: Adam Yip

The point?

The big wheel down at KPMG is Paul Howes, its national managing partner in the consulting space, and to whom Wirth has been married for a decade.

Granted, Howes isn’t likely to be anywhere near the details of the sale, but the symmetry is surely a coincidence worth noting?

Final chapter?

There are some worrying signs out of Booktopia’s recently published half-yearly accounts, with the numbers suggesting some grave uncertainty and even the potential for insolvency.

The company’s being propped up by some spare change and nothing but two finance facilities and a prayer at this point.

Even the auditor is querying whether it can remain a going concern moving forward.

RSM Partner David Talbot noted a net loss of $16.7m for December 31 (that’s up from a loss of $3.89m a year earlier), liabilities exceeding assets by $39.4m, and negative net liabilities of some $20.8m.

“These events,” Talbot wrote, “indicate that a material uncertainty exists that may cast significant doubt on the Group’s ability to operate as a going concern”.

And later in the report: “There remain risks to the Group’s ability to continue as a going concern if it is unable to achieve its operating cash flow forecasts and/or breaches its debt covenants.”

The silver lining is, of course, the positive cash flow of $2.89m, plus the assumptions liquidity will remain intact for at least 12 months.

Still, as Talbot observed, there’s strife ahead if the cash flow forecasts can’t be met and the debt covenants are breached — there’s a finance facility for some $7m with Moneytech Finance and a debt facility of some $3.5m with AFSG Asset Management).

Hardly helpful, too, is the fact customers keep posting online of money being taken by Booktopia for books but orders going unfulfilled, or arriving several months late.

Scale fail

And look, in the scheme of things, the latest lawsuit to be filed in the state of New York against corporate shyster David Collard is relatively small beer, but that doesn’t mean we’re about to ignore it.

Collard, founder of defunct enterprise Scale Facilitation, is already facing legal action from unpaid staff, from a financial assistance firm, from American Express over an unpaid credit card bill of $1.18m.

David Collard appears in Manhattan Supreme Court in New York City in February of this year. Picture: Jefferson Siegel

And that’s to say nothing of the Australian Taxation Office investigation into his company and the allegations it filed fraudulent business activity statements to the tune of some $120m.

Collard, of course, has denied wrongdoing and has been doing so since Australian Federal Police raided his Geelong offices.

The latest out of Manhattan is a claim filed by legal firm Mintz and Gold seeking damages of $US68,964.32 — that’s roughly $100,000 in our money — for what they claim was a breach of their retainer agreement.

Interesting note on the documents, too.

“The Agreement was entered into by M&G in reliance on fraudulent statements made by Scale Facilitation principal, David Collard,” the fraudulent statement apparently being he promised to pay and then just … didn’t.

It’s a suspicion confirmed in the following lines: “To date, (they) have failed to satisfy the amounts due and owing to M&G for legal services provided to them.”