Fundie Perkins the new force in print

Cartoon: Rod Clement.

Our newest magazine tycoon is the charismatic fundie Clark Perkins who hopes his team understands the print landscape. The Auckland-born venture capitalist, who turns 53 later this year, has certainly secured Bauer Media’s Australia and New Zealand publishing arm at a substantial discount.

Bauer had spent $565m accumulating their magazine stable, and while no one is confirming the latest price, the highest mooted figure is $50m.

Perkins will be in charge of The Australian Women’s Weekly, Cleo, Woman’s Day, Dolly, and a few more that collectively reach nine million Australians.

Perkins founded Mercury Capital in 2010 after making private equity plays as Goldman Sachs JBWere’s managing director of merchant banking.

Mercury is headed by Perkins and boasts high-profile New Zealand directors Craig Heatley, who started Sky TV in New Zealand, along with Tom Sturgess and Geoff Ricketts. Perkins, the former chairman of Kathmandu, joined forces with CVC’s Ben Hawter and Oliver Tompkins of McKinsey & Co to set up Mercury.

Mercury initially raised a $120m fund 10 years ago. In 2015, a $300m fund followed, and in 2018 there was a third fund with a $600m raise.

The steal suggests Perkins, who resided in Herne Bay before his arrival in Sydney, will be no Adrian MacKenzie — who overpaid when he led CVC’s acquisition of James Packer’s print media assets, plus the Nine Network, in 2006.

Maybe the aura of Perkin’s Loch Maree, Vaucluse home contributed to the acquisition. The now modernised 1960s home was built by the late buccaneering maverick businessman Gordon Barton, who dabbled in publishing. His Tjuringa Securities is credited as the pioneer Australian corporate raider, with Barton overseeing acquisitions including Federal Hotels, Angus & Robertson and the retailer Buckinghams.

With wife Marguerite, Perkins bought the harbourfront home for $29.5m two years ago.

Best remembered as the IPEC express freight founder, Barton set up two newspapers, the Sunday Observer in Melbourne and the Sunday Review, the latter becoming the Nation Review. The Sunday Observer folded after two years in 1971, costing Barton about $2m, and he sold the ­Nation Review in 1978.

Perkins apparently knows print well by owning NZ’s largest printing company, Blue Star Group.

Margin Call reckons the past queen of magazines, Nene King, needs to be on Perkins’ appointment calendar to better understand the industry.

Channelling Chopper

Its doubtful the late Mark “Chopper” Read ever actually got into a Country Women’s Association morning tea. But that was the image suggested in the Senate when the parliament was considering the Morrison government still allowing rich-list companies to dodge reporting requirements.

Some senators are fighting to scrap a 25-year-old rule allowing more than 1100 companies to avoid lodging accounts with the corporate watchdog ASIC.

The Senate has voted twice this week to attach the move to separate legislation.

Greens Senator Peter Whish-Wilson is pushing for annual reports from all.

“The fact this anomaly
sits there and has not been tackled by this chamber stands out like Chopper Read at a Country Women’s Association morning tea,” Whish-Wilson suggested.

Liberal frontbencher Zed Seselja said nothing on Chopper, just that the government was still working on implementing the five-year-old recommendation.

Chopper Read, who died in 2013, was a convicted criminal and gang member who turned to authoring semi-autobiographical crime novels and children’s books.

Whish-Wilson noted Chopper Read was an honorary Tasmanian, having lived there on and off. “That is not to say that I honour Chopper Read at all, however.”

Crash landing

They might have the support of the Australian trade unions, but the Cyrus consortium has to convince the idle Virgin flight crew that they will pay and stay should they win the bidding process.

Doubts arise after Cyrus’s dim endeavours in the UK Flybe saga earlier this year.

Cyrus, along with Virgin Atlantic and Stobart Aviation, participated in the Connect Airways consortium, with grand plans to fund the British airline Flybe, agreeing to contribute to keep the airline in the air.

They pledged to deliver more choice to customers, rebranding Flybe under the Virgin Atlantic brand and incorporating its feeder services into Virgin’s extensive long-haul network.

While Virgin wanted lucrative Heathrow slots, the City reckoned Cyrus actually just wanted a quick profitable flip.

But their stated hopes failed to materialise and in January this year, the consortium confirmed no further funding would be provided. Connect then asked the UK government for assistance, but Flybe’s competitors successfully argued a government loan may be illegal.

Cyrus’s boss Lucien Far rell was Connect Airways chairman.

Flybe went into administration in March amid the COVID-19 shutdown. Cyrus advised it remains in contact with Flybe’s administrators, and its management team, to best position the business to emerge from administration.

Stobart, Virgin Atlantic and Cyrus’s Luxembourg-based entity head the secured creditors.

And the best thing about Luxembourg? Its generous tax laws.

Meanwhile, another tax haven could be the undoing of crestfallen Flybe employees’ pensions entitlements.

The employee pension scheme isn’t protected by the UK’s Pension Protection Fund because the company is registered in the Isle of Man.

The protection fund would normally bail out the pension fund to the tune of around 90 per cent.

Saving the Salvos

Philanthropists Dick Smith and wife Pip have doubled their annual gift to the Salvation Army’s Red Shield Appeal from $25,000 to $50,000.

The coupled have recognised “the gravity of the times”, as an unprecedented number of Australians face economic hardship following the devastating bushfire season
and then the COVID-19 pandemic.

The Red Shield Appeal is striving to raise $35m by June 30, to help sustain more than 2000 services to Australia’s vulnerable. But it is struggling a bit notwithstanding the generosity of many, including Nicola and Andrew Forrest’sMinderoo foundation which gave $500,000.

Sam Gance’sChemist Warehouse donated $300,000 and the Brian Moynihan-led Bank of America gave more than $150,000.

The Salvation Army’s Major Bruce Harmer advised that over the past year The Salvation Army provided more than 1.2 million sessions of care to Australians in need.

Tackling tough issues

Former Wallaby Beau Robinson has released his first book. In the Arena tells of Robinson’s rise from working as a garbage man on Sydney’s Northern Beaches to being a business leadership coach.

It’s been years in the making for Robinson, who, following his 2017 retirement, founded Beau Robinson Leadership & Culture Coaching & Consultancy where he shares his experiences. The likes of CBA, Deloitte Australia, Michael Page and Brambles have engaged his services.

All profits of the book go towards two mental health organisations, the Randwick-based Black Dog Institute, whose board includes ASX general manager Grant Lovett, and Sydney CBD’s mental health organisation batyr Australia.

Robinson was part of the Classic Wallabies trip to Fiji which brings past Wallabies together for support as they transition into life after rugby union.

Robinson said the mental health side of the transition gained momentum in 2017 when former teammate Dan Vickerman tragically took his own life.

“It was a real shock and wake-up to the rugby community, and particularly to those going through the transition that mental health discriminates against no one,” Robinson says.

Sports physio veteran Roger Fitzgerald wrote the foreword and Robinson’s former teammate James Horwill wrote the afterword.

Tony Sacre, the Sydney Stock Exchange boss, has been reading the book.