Jughead joke by incoming chief; New name skipping into the rich-list realm
Imagine: You’ve just been named the incoming CEO and managing director of a $2bn ASX-listed enterprise. You’re preparing to start your high-profile job within weeks.
Do you sanitise your social-media profiles for any vulgar, distasteful postings from the very recent past? Ideally yes, and certainly before Margin Call discovers any outdated jokes about buxom women and their “jugs” that might embarrass you.
Andrew Reding wasn’t so nimble. The 66-year-old was announced as the incoming leader of construction giant Fletcher Building last month after an extensive global search. His starting date is September 30.
Fletcher is headquartered in New Zealand but runs a host of Australian businesses, including Laminex, Tradelink and Oliveri Solutions, to name a few.
But this is also a company with very loud commitments to DEI and its norms around speech and behaviour. Two years ago, Fletcher unveiled a policy to give its employees 10 days of paid gender affirmation leave, should they require it. Another target it seeks is for a third of its leadership positions to be awarded to women by 2027.
Not that we’re suggesting Reding isn’t supportive of that ambition. But posting a humorously indecent image of a blonde cafe waitress subordinating herself to a guy in a suit isn’t exactly consistent with the values of the modern corporation or its champions.
The picture depicts the woman cautiously unbuttoning her top in front of the male – seated, suited, smirking slightly at the camera, the locus of all power in the image – after she “misunderstood his inquiry about the jugs” at the venue.
Harmless fun from another era? Perhaps, but this photograph has been pinned as Reding’s profile picture on Facebook for the past two years, and from what we can tell the man in the suit is … yes, it’s him.
So apparently fond was the incoming bossman of this image that he kept it in place right up until Margin Call started asking questions about it on Wednesday afternoon.
Fletcher didn’t respond to our questions and, unsurprisingly, it was switched out for another pic within minutes of our inquiries.
Bear in mind this bit of mischief pales in comparison to Fletcher’s actual problems. Its shares have halved to $2.52 over the past year, its credit rating has been downgraded, and it’s also facing litigation in Western Australia for selling dodgy plumbing pipes in more than 15,000 homes.
Skipping into riches
Might it be time to add another name for consideration to John Stensholt’s annual rich list?
Accenture recently completed its acquisition of boutique competitor Partners in Performance, founded by Skipp Williamson in 1996, and a deal likened in size and significance to EY’s purchase of Port Jackson Partners in 2020.
But while the terms of the deal weren’t publicised, Margin Call is reliably informed Accenture’s purchase of PiP came with a price tag of about $375m, a sum that sees Williamson earn about $300m with her 80 per cent ownership of the brand.
These numbers make sense given that Accenture paid $105.6m in 2022 for Fiftyfive5 and its 190 staff. By comparison, PiP reported fee earnings of $120m in 2019 and brings about 400 staff into Accenture.
Not that Accenture or Williamson would dare to confirm the numbers. Margin Call contacted her directly and received a response from a flak at Accenture. “As the terms of that transaction were not disclosed, we have no comment to make on any rumours that may be circulating in the market,” they said.
Ah, but we don’t deal in rumours here.
On a poll roll
Pollster Jim Reed didn’t exactly make a secret of his newly formed enterprise, Wolf+Smith, which appeared on his updated LinkedIn profile about a week ago.
And no, Wolf+Smith is not a trendy new cafe, or a distressed denim venture; it’s actually a polling and strategy company formed jointly with former Morrison government consigliore Yaron Finkelstein, the pair having worked together for years during their time at CT Group.
Where this becomes tricky is that Reed is already the founder of Resolve Strategic, which is partnered with our chums at The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age to provide them with monthly political track polling.
No adjustments to that relationship so far as we can tell. But Wolf+Smith’s entry to the polling scene does have a whiff of the cheating partner about it.
How else are we to explain the appearance of Reed’s work with Wolf+Smith being published last week by our News Corp stablemates at the Courier Mail? Noticeable, too, that Finkelstein was the one quoted as the pollster in the piece, with Reed’s name going unmentioned. Or are we reading too much into it?
Not that we’ve seen the terms and contractual conditions that Resolve has signed with Nine Entertainment but, given their partnership, this business of Reed going off on a side project does look a little awkward.
Finkelstein told us that the Wolf+Smith numbers were a “one-off political poll for a launch” rather than ongoing work in that space. “We’re moving on from traditional polling to issues and values insights research,” he said.
We’ll see.
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