Hawthorn president Jeff Kennett causes disquiet at AFL club; Ian Malouf launches new yacht
Jeff Kennett appears to have caused significant disquiet at Hawthorn, with well-placed sources suggesting the former Victorian premier is angling to place club legend Don Scott on the panel that has been tasked to decide on his replacement as president of the AFL club.
The Hawks in November said they would begin the process to find a successor to Kennett, who has served as the club’s president since 2017 – despite the appointment only being meant to run for three years. (Kennett graciously decided to stay on to guide the club through the pandemic, although many insiders still think the title will have to be prised out of his hands at some stage.)
A Hawthorn great he may be, but Scott’s nomination is also bound to cause a raised eyebrow or two – especially given he is being pushed along by Kennett – given his close association with another high-profile ex-footballer, Sam Newman. Scott and Newman are the co-hosts of the You Cannot Be Serious podcast.
Newman is no stranger to controversy, with the former Footy Show co-host – an avowed supporter of Donald Trump – approached to run as a One Nation candidate. In 2020, he resigned from the Nine Network after describing the unarmed black man who was killed in the US by a white police officer as a “piece of shit”.
Scott is well known among club figures to be privately critical of the AFL Women’s. The Hawks will enter the AWFL at the end of the year.
Sources close to the discussions told Margin Call that a final decision on the make-up of the so-called nominations committee, which is to decide Kennett’s replacement, is yet to be made.
Others on the heavyweight board include former AustralianSuper chief executive Ian Silk, REA Group chief executive Owen Wilson and, Probuild managing director Luke Stambolis. The Hawthorn president did not respond to calls from Margin Call on Thursday.
It would be a significant turnaround from Scott’s previously icy relationship with Kennett. In 2019, he declined an invite from the ex-premier to attend the club’s annual general meeting to be named a Legend of the Hawthorn Football Club. As was reported by AFL.com.au at the time, Scott told friends he was “miffed to be asked to appear at the AGM whereas the eight previous Legends – JohnKennedySr, Graham Arthur, Leigh Matthews, Michael Tuck, Jason Dunstall, David Parkin, Peter Knightsand Peter Hudson – were all feted at celebratory dinners.”
Kennett told the Herald Sun in 2020: “I’ve informed the board, so yes, this will be my last year as president.” Maybe, after 25 months, it will be.
Malouf sets sail
Three years ago, Ian Malouf hit the big time after selling his entire Dial-A-Dump business to Bingo Industries for a cool $578m.
Since then, there hasn’t been much slowing down.
The man known as Australia’s richest garbo shelled out $141m on Sydney luxury property last year, including the city’s most expensive penthouse and a couple of Double Bay mansions.
When he isn’t flitting between those and his $20m weekend shack at Palm Beach, Malouf is getting around on his 54m superyacht Mischief – which is available for $15,000 an hour when he isn’t using it.
How to top that? How about by launching his refurbished 73m Coral Ocean superyacht that has just undergone a €35.1m ($53m) refit in time for the northern hemisphere summer.
With pandemic restrictions easing, look for Malouf to get back to his usual mid-year habit of flitting between events such as the Cannes Film Festival and Monaco Grand Prix.
Coral Ocean is listed on the Malouf family’s Ahoy Club yacht charter business from a mere €650,000 a week.
The superyacht will come with 20 crew to look after up to 12 guests in six bedrooms.
And Coral Ocean is said to be worth about $150m now, which is of course more than Malouf’s collection of Sydney prestige property cost in 2021.
It is one way for Malouf to celebrate beating the corporate regulator last year, with confirmation the Australian Securities & Investments Commission had abandoned its long-running investigation into allegations of insider share trading.
No word on whether Malouf is on the prowl to snap up further superyacht assets just yet though, with a few Russian oligarchs set to go without on the Mediterranean this year given their vessels have been impounded.
Turnbull chips in
Former prime minister Malcolm Turnbull was certainly the headline act when bot security outfit Kasada announced it had raised $23m in a Series C funding round in December. Kasada, started by former Defence Signals Directorate operator Sam Crowther, sees good money fighting bot-related online crime.
NFT? Tick. Crypto? Tick.
But new documents lodged with the corporate regulator show the biggest contributions came from US firms Ten Eleven Ventures and Greenspring Associates, who paid more than $7m apiece as part of the fundraising. Through Turnbull and Partners, the ex-PM (who also sits on the company’s board) was good for about $528,800.
The CSIRO was also a major backer in the fundraising round, purchasing 236,980 shares for a total of $4.04m, the documents lodged with ASIC show. Others who bought in included Westpac’s VC arm Reinventure.
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