Healthy, wealthy and wise: The world according to Crown’s Harold Mitchell

Melbourne business identity and would-be sweight loss consultant Harold Mitchell. Picture: Stefan Postles

When it comes to taking health tips from the nation’s business elite, there are a few names that come to mind — cycling enthusiasts Hamish Douglass or Phil Chronican for example, or former Olympic rower Rob Scott.

Well down on the list, perhaps even off the page, is former adman and Crown director Harold Mitchell.

So much was our surprise then that during his testimony to Patricia Bergin’s casino inquiry, Mitchell revealed that his dealings with James Packer since Packer’s departure from the board in 2018 have largely been discussions of health.

“The main thing that Packer and I spoke about in the years that followed was how to keep your weight down,” he told counsel assisting Scott Aspinall.

“We did not speak at all about Crown.”

The quip was just one in a string of candid moments shared by an animated Mitchell from in front of his cyan-toned bookshelves at his Melbourne CBD apartment, which he shares with “little dog” Lilly — who also made a cameo.

Perhaps the most enthusiastic witness to date, Mitchell treated the counsel to lengthy reflections on his early business deals, including taking a stake in Coffs Harbour’s Big Banana more than 30 years ago which contributed to a $32m debt pile in the midst of the early 90s recession.

“What was I thinking? Never invest in things you know nothing about,” he told the commission, going on to describe his dealings with the late Kerry Packer as life-changing.

While the media bigwigs had started out around the same time, it wasn’t until after the World Series Cricket that their friendship was cemented, and ultimately culminated in a $1.9m rescue loan with “no strings attached”, first sparked by then Nine boss Sam Chisholm.

“It was a terrible time for Kerry. He kept shaking his head at me … He loves a disaster. He said ‘why would you sign a personal guarantee?’.

“… thank you for reminding me of that Mr Aspinall.”

The somewhat unprompted trip down memory lane was sparked as Aspinall referenced points in Mitchell’s own autobiography Living Large. The World of Harold Mitchell.

Even 11 years after its publication, Mitchell was seemingly chuffed — going so far as to offer to sign a copy for the counsel ­assisting if the two were ever to meet in person.

That’s as he pondered to himself whether its publication was a smart move in the first place: “I’m not sure if I should have written that book,” he said, again unprompted.

Fellow Crown director Ben Brazil, whose appearance before the commissioner on Thursday centred on his “thumping of the table”, resurfaced in questioning of Mitchell, who recalled that despite being in the same board meeting, he had not heard the banging.

“I think it was a metaphoric banging of the table,” corrected Bergin.

“Well, I think I was on the other side of the boardroom so I might not have heard it.”

Pressed on his independence on Crown’s board after 10 years of service and the case for specific parameters to drive director renewal, Mitchell called upon his hefty contact book — drawing examples of Rupert Murdoch for his long association with NewsCorp, while his “good friend” David Gonski and Westfield chair Frank Lowy also had been on boards for a long time.

“I would be reluctant to tell Frank Lowy after all these years that it was his time to go,” Mitchell said.

The question of age and tenure was one met with frank honesty — “clearly I’m getting older”, a sentiment that wasn’t spared for others in his business dealings either.

Asked if he had considered the casino’s association with Melco and prohibited personality Stanley Ho, he admitted that he “didn’t even know that Stanley Ho was still alive to be honest. He was very old”.

Fund flexes muscles

The power of proxy voting has been brought to the fore with pushback on corporate governance and climate change, leaving the major mining and financial players shaking in their boots. But while boards and management across the ASX negotiate to keep themselves out of strike territory, it’s the proxies of Local Government Super that have caught this column’s attention.

The fund, which is chaired by Kyle Loades and manages $12bn in retirement savings for public servants, is pushing back on the AGM resolutions put forward by budget jewellery chain Lovisa.

Its seems there’s more to the fund than just roads, rates and rubbish — though for the record they do back all resolutions forVik Bansal’s Cleanaway.

Ahead of Lovisa’s AGM later this month, LGS has moved to block the re-election of board member Tracey Blundy, younger sister of retail powerhouse Brett, saying it’s not in shareholders’ interests.

The fund also describes the granting of equity to managing director Shane Fallscheer as excessive, blocking that move too, along with a vote against the remuneration report.

Across the rest of its holdings, LGS is remarkably agreeable — voting in line with all resolutions set out by Cochlear, for example, including advice to block a move by vocal businessman and former journalist Stephen Mayne to join the board.

It’s not the first move of this kind for Mayne, who last year made a bid to dethrone Harvey Norman’s Katie Page, and who boasts a track record of “asking questions at more than 400 AGMs and participating in more than 300 capital raisings”.

In fact, it’s that very curiosity that was also brought up before the casino inquiry — with counsel assisting Scott Aspinall playing for the commission an excerpt of Mayne’s questions to Crown’s 2019 AGM.

Probed on whether answers to Mayne’s queries on James Packer’s involvement were accurate, Harold Mitchell said: “There were questions asked for over an hour in that meeting. Mr Mayne asked questions for 90 per cent of that time.

“I might not have paid as much attention … he always asked a lot of questions.”