For Sydney’s glitterati cocktail set, it’s ice, a slice and a dash of corona

Cartoon: Rod Clement

There’s never been the willpower for staying at home among Sydney’s eastern suburbs glitterati set.

“Go to all the cocktail parties — golden rule of Sydney life,” Mike, the film industry hustler, told Melburnian scriptwriting expatriate Colin in the David Williamson play Emerald City.

That was before the roaring late 1980s, but it’s still the mantra today despite all the precautionary coronavirus social contact edicts.

First up it was Bellevue Hill stockbroker Les Owen who contracted the virus after dining at the Hemmes restaurant Mr Wong with Hollywood royalty Tom Hanks and Rita Wilson.

Now Paddington Liberal senator Andrew Bragg has advised he’s a confirmed case, tweeting it came after he attended a wedding. It was the Stanwell Tops marriage of Scott Maggs and Emma Metcalf, who, while honeymooning in the Maldives, alerted wedding guests on social media that there was the prospect of COVID-19 contamination.

The NSW Health Department has calculated that the affluent Woollahra municipality has the most of any confirmed cases in Sydney with an unknown source of infection.

Another case is a bit of a mystery, but Margin Call reckons it may well be a Woollahra socialite just back from an Aspen ski trip — which included a cocktail party held by Toorak businessman Andrew Abercrombie.

As Aspen closed off its lift runs, she flew back, only to be tested positive. She’s not that keen on being isolated in her $7m bolthole.

Howard’s end

The annual Sydney Institute dinner has been postponed. Foreign Affairs Minister Marise Payne was set to introduce the guest speaker, whose identity was being kept a tightly held secret.

That had Margin Call imagining a renowned retired international figure with emeritus status but still deserving of high-security measures had been lined up by Gerard Henderson, the institute’s executive director. Or maybe even a regional leader from one of our close neighbours.

It won’t be the former PM John Howard, who lectured the 30th anniversary gathering of influential attendees only last year on whether politics has really changed from Menzies to Morrison.

Other past PMs Tony Abbott, Kevin Rudd and Julia Gillard have also given the annual lecture that kicked off in 1990, a year after the institute opened.

There were expected to be 800 guests at the dinner, now a non-starter after Scott Morrison’s ban on events of over 500 people. “For obvious reasons, it is not at all wise to go ahead in April,” institute chair Jacquelynne Willcox said.

That’s gotta hurt

His sharemarket losses aren’t in the order of some of his rich list contemporaries, but surely the dosh that billionaire retailer Solomon Lew has done on his protracted and ferocious battle with the Garry Hounsell-chaired Myer must hurt.

If not his loaded hip pocket, then certainly his ego.

Lew, as chair of Premier Investments, has waged a two-year-plus campaign against the department store retailer and its leadership, resulting in two annual meeting strikes, but no spill of Hounsell’s board.

In early 2017, Solly forked out just over $100m for a 10.8 per cent stake in the ailing retailer, whose shares at the time were trading at about $1.15.

Fast forward a couple of years and oh how times have changed.

Since Lew leapt in, things for Myer shares haven’t gone well.

Yesterday, thanks in part to fear around what the coronavirus will mean for retailers, stock in the John King-led group traded as low as 20c to capitalise the once iconic retailer at just over $168m.

That’s $12m less than the $180m-odd that King said the department store group was holding as cash at its interim balance date seven weeks ago.

Lew’s 88.5 million shares are now worth about $84m less than when he bought them, with little prospect that things are looking up from here for the group.

Ouch.

World of worry

Where to now for The World, the ship spookily long referred to as the Noah’s Arc for the filthy rich?

Margin Call spotted the actually super-disinfected squillionaires tub while it was moored off Port Douglas last month, and then when it berthed on Sydney Harbour.

The apartment cruise ship (the penthouse is for sale at $20m) is now at Fremantle, after arriving from Adelaide with 140 passengers on board.

The schedule was to head north along the West Australian coast up to Broome, then off to … well … ahem … Italy.

Unsurprisingly, the schedule now involves staying longer in Fremantle/Perth, with plans to be back there for Easter. That might suit Gina Rinehart, who ranks among the owners of the ship that has been sailing the world since 2002 with the body corporate periodically choosing the glamorous destinations a year or so in advance.

Cruise ships recently cruising Australian waters can come and go for the next 30 days, as long as the ship’s captain can provide port authorities with a firm declaration about the health of all persons aboard.

Crown of sworns

Rubber was set to hit the road with resumption on Wednesday of Patricia Bergin’s NSW gaming commission’s inquiry into expatriate billionaire James Packer’s rapidly shrinking Crown Resorts.

After a three-week break while legal matters relating to the inquiry were resolved in the NSW Court of Appeal, the Helen Coonan-chaired Crown was to get the chance to speak its truth at public hearings via its chief legal officer Joshua Preston, who was scheduled to step into Bergin’s realm on Wednesday and Thursday.

But on Tuesday at the last minute the hearings were canned, due to the threat of COVID-19, despite the hearing room already being deep- cleaned and rejigged so that those in situ at the bar tables could practise social distancing.

The inquiry is looking at the $880m sale of 10 per cent of Crown to Hong Kong gaming billionaire Lawrence Ho, as well as allegations over money-laundering at Crown in Melbourne and how that might affect the now $5bn company’s suitability to operate the still under-construction casino at Barangaroo in Sydney.

Following a recruitment process about six months ago, Crown has a new group general manager, money-laundering, Nick Stokes, who started in November after leaving investment bank Credit Suisse. He reports to witness-in-waiting Preston.

Stokes replaced Louise Lane, who left in favour of joining Racing Victoria as its general manager of legal, risk and compliance.

Margin Call hears a rumour swirling about Crown that there was another, higher-profile candidate who threw their hat in the ring for the key AML gig, which raised more than a few eyebrows internally at what was then still the John Alexander-led gaming giant.

Gossip goes that sacked Border Force boss Roman Quaedvlieg, who in May 2017 was put on leave from Peter Dutton’s department pending investigation into corruption and was later dismissed for not complying with disclosure requirements regarding a relationship with a woman, also applied for the heavy-hitting Crown job, but was unsuccessful in his pitch to enter the listed corporate universe.

Funny about that.

Quaedvlieg is believed to have applied to Crown just weeks after the Peter Costello-chaired Nine Entertainment aired red-hot material on corruption at Crown, which was a catalyst for the Bergin inquiry.

Quaedvlieg appeared in Nine’s Crown Unmasked report claiming he was encouraged by members of parliament, including ministers, to help fast-track Crown’s Chinese high-rollers through Australia’s borders.

“Due to privacy considerations, Crown does not comment on the specifics of its business practices, including hiring and recruitment,” a Crown spokeswoman told Margin Call.

And despite very best efforts, Quaedvlieg could not be contacted for comment.

While he didn’t advance in his pitch for the high-paying Crown gig, the former policeman and public servant will still get another chance to discuss matters relating to the casino group.

Quaedvlieg, now a cybersecurity consultant, is one of a handful of witnesses at the planned Australian Commission for Law Enforcement Integrity’s public hearings for its Crown corruption probe, which remains postponed under new integrity commissioner Jaala Hinchcliffe.

We look forward to that.