Hugh and cry over Nine axing

Cartoon: Peter Nicholson.

Has Nine’s newbie boss Hugh Marks boned himself? It’s starting to look that way.

It turns out that Stephen Rice — the 60 Minutes producer and 30-year veteran of the network — was publicly sacked on Friday before he’d signed a settlement contract with the network. Unbelievable.

That means Rice is free to set his lawyers on his former employer to try to ramp up his payout, which is exactly what TheDaily Telegraph revealed he is doing. Media lawyer John Laxon has been set on the case.

It is the latest in a series of disastrous decisions by Nine.

Remember, the statement about Rice’s departure was released on Friday alongside a report into 60 Minutes decision to enter the international kidnapping business.

That report, authored by former Nine news execs Gerald Stone and David Hurley, and in-house lawyer Rachel Launders, said that no one should be “singled out” for dismissal.

As we wrote on Saturday, that would seem to give Rice a handy bit of ammunition for an unfair dismissal case — if he was allowed to go without signing a settlement.

What was Marks thinking? Isn’t he a lawyer? Even by recent Willoughby standards this looks like a cock-up of extraordinary proportions.

It almost makes us wonder if the newbie is up to the job.

Spotless blemish

More intrigue from the Margaret Jackson-chaired cleaning and catering outfit Spotless.

As Spotless itself admitted in a note to the ASX on Monday, it hasn’t been able to explain recent strange activity in its share price, as we flagged last week.

On Thursday the stock plunged 10 per cent — as a result of who knows what. Even with the boost from the possible spin-off of its laundries business (which has the highest margins in its portfolio), Spotless stock was down more than 10 per cent over the month, as the ASX had its best May since 2005 (gaining 2.4 per cent).

We have heard from several sources that Spotless chief financial officer Nigel Chadwick had a series of one-on-one meetings with analysts in early May.

Interestingly, the visiting analysts were told the company’s debt levels (about $800 million) were “likely to remain elevated”.

Spotless would not comment on the meetings and pointed us to its Monday statement — the one that said it couldn’t explain the odd share price movements.

The company has had a torrid life since it was floated in mid-2014 by private equity outfit Pacific Equity Partners. Which is why Martin Sheppard is running the business after the inglorious Bruce Dixon-era.

Understandably, shareholders remain jumpy. Can you blame them?

Food for thought

Where was Air New Zealand boss Christopher Luxon at 8:39am (AEST) yesterday, the time that Virgin boss John Borghetti served him what is known in the airline business as a “sh*t sandwich”?

Luxon wasn’t yet in Dublin, where he is travelling for the International Air Transport annual meeting that starts on Wednesday evening (Irish time).

Nor was he locked up in an aviation cabin.

We understand Luxon was on the ground — although we are not sure in which country — to read the breathtaking news that Borghetti had done a deal with the private Chinese aviation giant HNA to buy a 13 per cent stake in Virgin for $159 million.

It’s hard to see how that won’t make it harder for Luxon to sell Air New Zealand’s now 22.5 per cent stake in Virgin.

Almost makes you wonder if Luxon will reconsider the whole exercise. Surely not.

Moving out

Meantime, former ANZ boss Mike Smith, who seems to have got out of the Melbourne ‘four pillar’ just in time, has managed to strike a deal for the sale of his redundant Toorak pile, which has been up for grabs since February.

While the deal for the Hopetoun Road home has been done with its Asian buyer — a Chinese billionaire perhaps? — things are believed to have been held up by a technicality that we can only figure relates to the uptight folk at Brian Wilson’s Foreign Investment Review Board.

Negotiations have taken place as Smith continues his review of business coverage at the ABC, which is still underway.

The former bank boss and his wife Maria bought the home, which has the obligatory tennis court, pool and porte-cochere, for $9.65 million in 2007.

Fingers crossed the deal for a 50 per cent uplift for the couple gets a rubber stamp from Wilson’s mob soon.

Down on his luck

As if losing his job and a legal stoush with ANZ over accusations of sexism weren’t enough, now stockbroker Angus Aitken has the corporate watchdog nipping at his loafers.

The former Bell Potter exec last week lost his job after he slammed ANZ boss Shayne Elliott’s appointment of Greenhill banker Michelle Jablko in a note to clients.

Now we hear tough cop on the beat Greg Medcraft is chasing the felled broker over unfulfilled obligations from the enforceable undertaking he signed with the regulator last December over the inappropriate trading of shares in Ten.

As part of a deal with ASIC, Aitken had to do an approved business ethic course before June 30. And now with four weeks left, it seems the regulator is getting shirty about his outstanding certificate. They should relax. We’ve heard from his colleagues at Bell that Aitken is on track to meet the deadline. Apparently he’s been attending lessons for the last four months.

The course is held at the Ethics Centre — which sits on Castlereagh Street in Sydney’s CBD just a few towers along from ANZ’s Sydney headquarters. And guess who is one of the centre’s patrons? ANZ chairman David Gonski. What a small world.

Battle of the WAGS

Look out Sydney PR maven Roxy Jacenko, there’s a new contender for the title of our court system’s most fashionable spouse.

While Jacenko, wife of Oliver Curtis, has captured the attention of fashionistas across the land with her daily designer kit donned for hubby’s insider trading trial in the NSW Supreme Court, yesterday she had a rival.

In Melbourne, Radhika Oswal, wife of Pankaj Oswal, was strutting Melbourne’s William Street as if on a catwalk. Looking a million bucks, she was bound for Victoria’s superior court in support of hubby’s fight against the ANZ. She even brought a Kardashianesque daughter along.

The Burrup Fertiliser Indian millionaire is suing the bank and receivers from PPB, including former Victorian Liberal Party state president Ian Carson, for at least $1.5 billion. The couple made their first appearance yesterday.

While Jacenko recycled a Mui Mui frock she’d shown the court before, it was a debut performance from Radhika in an above-the-knee body-con nude skirt, black (unlikely leather) jacket with (surely faux) fur trim and a pair of sky-high bedazzled black wedges.

As she left court for her lunchtime vegie feast, Radhika completed the look with bug-eyed sunnies, the better to shield from gathered press.

The trial is set down for a mammoth 61 days before veteran judge Julie Dodds-Streeton. Hope they’ve hired a stylist.

Let them eat cake

For old times sake we dropped into Sydney’s Rockpool Bar and Grill for lunch on Tuesday.

Not a bad crowd. There in the dress circle was former ABC chairman Maurice Newman catching up with Auntie’s recently retired managing director Mark Scott. Wonder what they are making of Michelle Guthrie’s first few weeks in the job?

A table across, former Qantas executive Simon Hickey (now the CEO of student accommodation business Campus Living Villages) was lunching with current Qantas executive Olivia Wirth. KMPG partner — and Wirth’s husband, who has done some consulting work for Qantas — Paul Howes also dropped by the table. So clearly not everyone in aviation land is Dublin-bound for the International Air Transport annual meeting.

Also in the house, recent guest of the column David Gallagher, who has been mooted as a candidate to replace Pauline Vamosas the head of the Association of Superannuation Funds of Australia, the nation’s peak superannuation lobby group.

And tucked down the far end of the restaurant, Southern Cross Austereo chief creative officer Guy Dobson was lunching with Rove McManus. More proof, not that it was needed, that the breakfast radio host is the great white hope of Grant Blackley’s media outfit.