James Packer exits Upside direct oversight; Viva’s OTR union another sin stock tick

Businesswoman Jodhi Meares. Picture: Justin Lloyd

Visiting billionaire James Packer has maintained close relationships with several of his former partners.

His ex-wife Erica Baxter, with whom he shares three children, has just renovated the businessman’s apartment at Crown Towers in Sydney and the pair travelled with their children on a family visit to the Harbour City.

Relations with his first wife, model and fashion entrepreneur Jodhi Meares, remain excellent too. Margin Call can reveal that Packer has now removed all directorial oversight from Meares’ company, The Upside Corporation.

Packer has a 40 per cent stake in the successful athleisure-wear operation and has had up to two directors on Meares’ board overseeing his investment.

But things have changed.

In September, in line with his wider exit from the Packer empire, lieutenant and former federal politician Mark Arbib left the fashion company’s board and then a couple of months ago key retail advisor Sam McKay also exited the board with no signs that the seats will be refilled.

Meares has the other 60 per cent of the company, of which she is a director along with two others – former David Jones womenswear executive David Bush and Meares’ long-time financial advisor Mark Calvetti, who runs corporate finance at William Buck.

The Upside has been run by ex Gazal Corp and Billabong exec Paul Burdekin for more than three years.

The surf and streetwear wear company bought Meares’ Tigerlily brand, which was for a time licensed by Gazal Corp.

The pared-back representation reflects the level of trust and more streamlined empire being run these days by billionaire Packer, although McKay still represents Packer’s interests on the football club board of the South Sydney Rabbitohs and is also a director of the Packer family Foundation.

McKay runs his own private equity firm Point King Capital which invests in global consumer companies.

PKC manages money for high net worth individuals. It recently added a stake in Los Angeles plant-based brand Flamingo Estate to its growing portfolio of investments. Flamingo Estate products retail in Australia at the Jo Horgan-owned Mecca Brands.

Victoria’s west coast lure

Word is that regional Victoria is the go-to domestic destination for the unfolding Easter break.

At Melbourne-based boutique advisory shop Flagstaff Partners the preference is clearly for the west coast of the southern state, rather than the oft-considered more fashionable and showy east coast and the likes of Flinders, Portsea and Sorrento.

Flagstaff deputy chair and former Macquarie banker Michael Burn has over the summer season dug deep for a new piece of real estate in Anglesea’s Point Roadknight district, where there will be plenty of space to bunker in amid expected stormy weather.

Burn, a former longstanding chair of the Victoria Racing Club, has forked out $5.3m for what might be described as a Hacienda-style home just a short walk to Point Roadknight and the popular Rusty Anchor Bar at the Anglesea Motor Yacht Club.

There Burn will no doubt run into regular Tony Burgess, who is Flagstaff’s chair. Burgess is just a couple of blocks up from Burn and has owned a holiday home in the locale for many years.

Burn’s old colleague at Macquarie Peter Yates is a regular at The Rusty too, having not long ago completed a new build on prestigious Melba Parade as well as owning several other properties in the area.

Cheers to the opportunity for a four-day break, even if it does rain.

Driving climate change, for now

If you see Climate 200-backed teal independent Kylea Tink driving around Sydney in a Polestar electric vehicle don’t get the wrong idea.

Tink, elected as the federal member for North Sydney last May defeating Liberal Trent Zimmerman, only has the car on loan for five weeks.

Kylea Tink’s Polestar EV a borrowed win for the environment. Picture: Martin Ollman

She’s been lent the vehicle by a Hobart dealership The Good Car Company, which is owned by an outfit Electric Vehicle Imports Pty Ltd and which in Canberra has its interests represented by veteran lobbyist Jo Scard’s Fifty Acres lobby shop.

The Polestar should look fine dressing up the driveway of the Northbridge family home of Tink, who ran on a platform of urgent action on climate change. She entered parliament holding shares in Beach Energy, an oil and gas explorer, and Viva Energy, which retails Shell-branded fuels. Those stocks were quickly sold once her holdings were exposed in the media.

Federal MPs we are aware of who actually have forked out for electric cars include Labor’s Bill Shorten and Patrick Gorman. Former Liberal member for Higgins Katie Allen, who lost her seat last May, has one too.

If there are others, please let us know.

Viva’s sin stock central

How many vices can Viva Energy embrace on chief Scott Wyatt’s watch?

Already the ASX-listed petrol and diesel supplier is on the wrong side of change as we seek to limit carbon emissions and slowly transition to electric vehicles.

Then last week Viva, which is chaired by former defence minister Robert Hill, agrees to pay South Australia’s uber rich Shahin family-owned Peregrine Corporation $1.15bn for its On The Run network of 205 convenience stores in the Peter Malinauskas-governed state.

Arguably the acquisition, which will see Viva expand the OTR retail model across its existing network of Shell-branded petrol stations, creates the sort of “sin stock” that ethical investors could be expected to run a mile from.

Aside from flogging fossil fuels as part of Big Oil, Viva via its acquisition is now also in bed 24-7 with Big Sugar thanks to OTR’s Krispy Kreme deal. Viva is also playing its part in Big Tobacco via the 150-plus Smokemart tobacconist outlets in OTR convenience stores.

What next? Perhaps adding a couple of gun shops to the portfolio to round out its status on the ASX as the go-go destination for Sin Stock investors.