John Borghetti climbs back in the saddle; Sabri Suby to the manor born

John Borghetti has two new chairmanships to keep him busy. Picture: Hollie Adams

Like a hibernating bear at the end of a long winter, former Virgin boss John Borghetti has arisen from slumber to claim the chairmanship of not one but two private multibillion-dollar enterprises.

Must be time for the 68-year-old to buy a new Ferrari.

Borghetti, who before he ran Virgin was a 34-year veteran of Qantas where he missed out on the top job to Alan Joyce, was on Tuesday named the new chair of private equity giant Blackstone-owned Crown Resorts.

Then on Wednesday, it was the billionaire Oatley family’s turn, naming Borghetti as the inaugural independent chair of their family empire, Balmoral Pastoral Investments, which trades under the more streamlined nomenclature Balmoral Australia.

It’s a time of transition for the wealthy family, whose siblings include Sandy, Rosalind and Ian Oatley, which recently shelved a UBS-led process for a mooted $1bn sale of Hamilton Island.

Sandy, who recently bought out the wider family’s Robert Oatley Vineyards, has handed the Balmoral chairmanship to Borghetti at a time when other family assets are also in flux.

Other independent Balmoral directors include the former head of Deutsche Bank in Australia and now ANZ director John Macfarlane and the wealthy businessman Guido Belgiorno-Nettis.

The renewed prominence of Borghetti, however, still sees the successful Sydney-based businessman far removed from Australia’s listed sharemarket, where he has failed to re-emerge since departing Virgin.

Skin in the game

There’s plenty of folk getting exercised over the Albanese government’s plan to double the tax rate to 30 per cent on future earnings for superannuation balances north of $3m from mid-next year.

And there are a few folk in Canberra, indeed the parliament, who will have more than a passing interest in how the tax hike is set to be implemented given they may be directly impacted by the change.

The final rules of the reform, which will hit defined contribution schemes and defined benefit schemes alike, are still being nutted out and will require legislative change.

So far we know from forward estimates that the tax hike is budgeted to bring in $2.3bn a year when fully implemented in the 2027-28 financial year, with the changes expected to impact about 10,000 individuals with defined benefit schemes with $3m-plus balances.

Of those 10,000 lucky ducks, there are a few retired and current pollies, who are part of the parliament’s old defined benefits scheme that applies to those elected before October 1996.

They include the likes of the Prime Minister Anthony Albanese himself, along with his Foreign Affairs Minister Penny Wong and Minister for Skills and Training Brendan O’Connor.

Members of the nation’s judiciary and public servants, many of whom are part of defined benefits schemes, also have a lot to lose.

The matter came up at Senate Estimates this week, when Liberal Senator Andrew Bragg probed Finance Minister Katie Gallagher on just who would make the final decision on how the new super regulations would operate.

After some back and forth it was confirmed that the rules would be decided by those ministers responsible for the Treasury portfolio, they being Jim Chalmers, Stephen Jones and Andrew Leigh, although Gallagher wasn’t prepared to say exactly who.

“It’s a huge conflict of interest,” Bragg declared, with ministers deciding on matters that will specifically hit their own boss’s (retirement) hip pocket nerve.

Yikes.

To the manor born

Youtuber and digital marketer Sabri Suby is making his tens of millions via the internet, but there’s nothing virtual about the bricks and mortar the businessman is using to build his wealth in Melbourne’s South Yarra.

Sabri Suby is knocking down his $9m South Yarra pile. Picture: Tim Carrafa

Founder of digital marketing agency King Kong and author of the best-selling book Sell Like Crazy, Suby spent $9.06m in January this year for a perfectly upright, albeit somewhat dated home on prestigious Como Avenue.

His profile continues to rise as a next generation “shark” on the revamped local version of the Ten Network’s business reality TV series Shark Tank.

Now the online entrepreneur, who likes to tell a rags to riches story from being raised by a single mum in Byron Bay, wants to knock the whole show down in favour of developing a new home on the 900-odd sqm site, which is just a couple of doors up from prestigious Como House.

Renovator’s dream

Professional life after running the AFL remains something of a blank canvas for Gillon McLachlan, but we can report that at least one thing that is progressing for the former sports administrator.

Still without a full-time gig having declined overtures towards running Tabcorp and, as reported by colleagues earlier this week, dithering on the non-executive role as chair of Racing Victoria, McLachlan has a fairly open schedule.

Gillon McLachlan. Picture: Getty Images

But the City of Stonnington is set to soak up at least some of the high-profile Melbournian’s time, with authorities having just flashed the green light to
McLachlan and his wife Laura’s planned $6m renovation to their historic home on Prahran’s leafy Grandview Grove.

The couple paid $13.5m for the home in mid-2022 and have been engaged with council for five months on their expansive plans.

All they need do now is build the thing.

Board makeover

This column told you yesterday of former prime minister Malcolm Turnbull’s freed-up dance card now that he was off the board of financial advisory and accounting group Findex, on which former Myer chair Garry Hounsell also previously sat.

This followed the sale of 40 per cent of the business by private equity giant KKR to local boutique outfit Mercury Capital.

It wasn’t really fair of Margin Call to say that Turnbull, who is a senior adviser to KKR, and Hounsell were dumped from the Findex board.

Rather, the change of majority ownership meant that the directors previously nominated by KKR resigned and were replaced by Mercury’s own reps on the reconstituted board.