Greg Hywood faces up to Fairfax journo flak

Illustration: Rod Clement

It was always going to be tough for Fairfax boss Greg Hywood to sell to his editorial staff the merits of the media company’s $4.2 billion merger with Hugh Marks’s Nine Entertainment.

Hywood, a journo himself in a distant life, gave it a crack on Thursday anyway after unveiling his own personal exit strategy from media.

“It was the end of a long day — and not the easiest of times or briefings to have with journalists passionate about Fairfax. No one ever expected this would be a Kumbaya floor meeting,” a spokesperson told us.

Those expectations were right on the money.

Hywood had already fronted staff in person in Sydney in what was by all accounts a robust exchange.

Next up on his list of stakeholder management was a forum for remaining staff around the country — including the famously anti-authoritarian crew at The Age — done using online meeting platform Slido.

The app allowed the boss to pick and choose his topics after workers earlier register their questions.

Things got off to an awkward start.

Before the formal proceedings began, but with the video link already fired up, nervous staff were treated to the sight of a waiter dressed smartly in white shirt and black trousers delivering a sparkling San Pellegrino to Hywood. A man is not a camel.

The hired help dutifully twisted the top off for the boss, which we’re told didn’t impress some staff.

Hywood then launched into the hook-up proper, speaking of the merits of the historic deal that does away with the Fairfax name.

Then he lauded Nine’s television journalism. That was met with snickers from staff that reverberated over the video link.

An unimpressed Hywood demanded to know who was laughing.

The answer? Fairfax staff around the country, including The Age crew (who, mercifully for Hywood, were on mute unlike the audible offenders elsewhere).

There was more amusement when Hywood addressed his leaving package, which he characterised as the normal entitlements.

For those who missed the number, the chief will walk away with a package worth more than $6.3 million and likely closer to $8m when his share options are taken into account. Not exactly normal in the Age newsroom.

Still, hats off to Hywood for fronting up.

As the spokesperson told us: “One of the great things about Fairfax is that you are never left wondering what anyone thinks. The floor knows Greg’s views and he knows theirs. All in all it was a good exchange.”

Experience of wealth

What new Macquarie Bank boss Shemara Wikramanayake might lack in stature she makes up for in wealth.

This 56-year-old British-born investment banker is loaded after her more than 30-year career at the $42 billion millionaire factory.

And Wikramanayake’s pile will only grow after she takes over the top job from outgoing chief executive Nicholas Moore on December 1.

We already know that the Ascham graduate has 710,003 shares that are worth $87.6m and which in the past year provided dividend income of $3.7m. That’s on top of her $16.7m pay, which should soon get a CEO bump.

Shemara Wikramanayake and Nicholas Moore in Sydney this week. Picture: John Feder.

She has some catching up to do with Moore (also a 30-plus year veteran of the institution), who is currently sitting on 2.31 million Macquarie shares worth $285m.

That entitles him to a $12.1m dividend cheque based on last year’s payout rate, an income stream that should be able to sustain the old boss’s lifestyle in retirement.

And both, of course, have a boot full of performance rights under the bank’s executive scheme.

Wikramanayake, whose husband Edward Gilmartin is a former MacBanker, and her family for a time were nearby neighbours of Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull and his wife Lucy in Sydney’s Point Piper, but now appear to live in Vaucluse, overlooking Hermit Bay.

The Sydney harbourside home is in the name of her mother and father, who is a doctor.

Gilmartin these days spends at least some of his time as a director of an unlisted investment fund run by Richard Tognetti’s Australian Orchestra that buys and holds rare musical instruments — its assets include a Stradivari violin made in 1728 — which are then lent to the ACO for use by its musicians.

The couple run some of their investments through their Bsaje Investments vehicle, but it seems most of their fortune is in their other investment vehicle, Aljebra (we hope what the new Macquarie boss lacks in spelling skills is made up by an aptitude for maths).

Attached to the vehicle is a lending facility with Credit Suisse out of New York, which includes a charge over the entity’s assets.

It’s unclear what the limits are on the facility, which may allow Wikramanayake to borrow against her almost $90m worth of Macquarie shares should her whooping salary and mighty dividend not suffice.

Bankers get their code

After almost three years of haggling, negotiating, editing, and then a bit more haggling, the new, authorised “Code of Banking Practice” should be out in weeks. Hallelujah!

Margin Call understands it will receive a final tick of approval from James Shipton’s ASIC and be set free into the world not long after Financial Services minister Kelly O’Dwyer returns from her brief winter break (which unfortunately meant she could only appear via a video recording at the Sally Loane-led Financial Services Council this week).

The code is a set of promises about how the various members in Anna Bligh’s Australian Banking Association should conduct themselves and is supposed to encourage them to be their best, pinstriped selves.

As the royal commission has demonstrated, it hasn’t yet led to banking customer nirvana. Perhaps the new version will do the trick.