Huawei still pandering to Beijing; Devil’s in the detail

Huawei’s Melbourne store at The Glen shopping Centre in Glen Waverley being opened.

It’s now been more than five years since then Coalition prime minister Malcolm Turnbull controversially banned Chinese telecommunications and tech giant Huawei from participating in the rollout of Australia’s 5G mobile network.

The decision played a role in the decline in relations between China and Oz, which only got worse when the Australian government called for an inquiry into the origins of Covid-19.

Now relations are thawing, Chinese Premier Li Qiang has been here for some panda diplomacy, but what of Huawei in Australia, with the outpost left to try to carve out a meaningful existence selling and distributing telco equipment and, more recently, solar inverters.

Well, the Chinese-owned Huawei Technologies (Australia), which reports up the food chain to a parent company in the Netherlands that feeds to the Chinese mothership, is still doing its part to feed the Middle Kingdom, despite its curtailed operations.

Filings just into the corporate regulator reveal that the local business in 2023 more than doubled its payments back home via dividends of almost $20m, despite revenue almost halving to about $80m and the operation now employing only 35 people.

Despite the $19.3m bumper dividend, in the 12 months to December 31 the Australian operation made a net profit of just $6.7m as revenue amounted to $80.1m. This compared with earnings of $7.8m the year before when sales were at $150m. The large drop in revenue reflects a major decline in the size of Huawei’s enterprise business here.

The big dividends meant Hua­wei’s local cash holdings also fell from $53.6m at the start of the year to $38m at the end.

In 2022 a much lesser $7.8m was returned via dividends to the Chinese parent, taking the two-year total to $27.1m in moneys sent home, the KPMG audited accounts show. There are no longer any Australian non-executive directors on Huawei Technologies (Australia) board. Historically, these seats had been filled by businessmen including John LordandLance Hockridge, as well as former politiciansJohn Brumbyand Alexander Downer.

Devil of a time

One of newly appointed Tabcorp boss Gillon McLachlan’s major achievements in his time running the AFL was paving the way for the establishment of the league’s 19th team in Tasmania.

The Tasmania Devils don’t have a chief executive yet – former Woolies boss Grant O’Brien is its chairman, based out of Sydney – but we can report that the organisation is on the cusp of receiving the all-important trademark on its name and logo.

The AFL first filed the paperwork to own the Tasmania Devils name in 2019, but alas Warner Bros already had its foot on the marsupial when it came to official ownership.

Until it was ready last year to actually proceed with the Tassie team plans, the AFL kept kicking the trademark can down the road, but in the past six months has been liaising with all parties to lock in the all-important nomenclature.

Recent months have seen it come to agreement with the US entertainment giant on the AFL also using the Tasmania Devils name, with an accompanying logo of a tiger bursting through a map of the Apple Isle.

Now the AFL is on the home stretch, with the trademark regulator last week advertising its “acceptance” of the trademark and with the registration now pending.

All’s well that ends well.

Twiggy’s twin bite

Andrew “Twiggy” Forrest had two bites of the cherry on Tuesday as Chinese Premier Li Qiang ventured to the billionaire businessman’s hometown Perth for the final day of the powerful politician’s four-day visit Down Under.

Finally Twiggy could stop tripping about the world on his private jet forging new relationships as he develops the green side of his multibillion-dollar iron ore-dominated operations and instead talk his book on home soil.

First it was to new Business Council boss and former adviser to Dominic Perrottet, Bran Black’s midmorning business round table at fancy Kings Park restaurant Fraser’s.

Then later in the arvo Twiggy was with Trade Minister Don Farrell andthe Chinese delegation to show off a Fortescue research and development facility at Hazelmere, where the miner is focused on developing hydrogen and ammonia-powered mining equipment, such as zero-emissions haul trucks.

China’s Premier Li Qiang is shown around Fortescue’s facilities by Andrew Forrest. Picture: Sharon Smith

To get to the morning roundtable, VIPs who included local Rio boss Kellie Parker, newly promoted BHP chief number cruncher Vandita Pant and Wesfarmers chief Rob Scott, had to access locked-down Kings Park via a major protest by a pro-Palestinian group as well a large Chinese presence gathered outside.

Business leaders, we are told, were given three minutes each to speak to Li, although how Twiggy would manage to limit himself is beyond us.

There were several pollies who’d managed to transition to the private sector also there, including Woodside director and former WA treasurer Ben Wyatt and one-time federal communications minister Warwick Smith, who these days is on the board of Seven Group, hence effectively placing the voice of local billionaire Kerry Stokes in the room too.

Also on board for the talk fest was BlueScope boss Mark Vassella, ANZ institutional boss Mark Whelan, GrainCorp chief Robert Spurway and Sue Kench, who runs law firm King Wood Mallesons.

Curious though, a semicircular room for a round table, go figure.