King’s had his fill of the ‘cliffs’; Lowe blow for Barrenjoey

Brett Blundy’s superyacht can be yours for a measly $240m.

There’s an appreciable amount of headless-chickenry going on over the impending “mortgage cliff” facing households when they come off their fixed interest rates.

It’s not a drama for Westpac’s chief executive Peter King, who told a business forum at the Hilton Sydney on Friday that he doesn’t care much for these grim predictions of an oncoming precipice. What cliff?

“There is no cliff!” he said to Australian Banking Association chief executive Anna Bligh, who was interviewing him on stage. In the audience was Ian Pollari, managing director at Accenture, and Alex Harvey, CFO at Macquarie Group, among others.

“If you’re a mortgage holder – whether you’re variable or fixed – your rate is going up. It’s just the speed of the change,” King said. “We assumed that the fixed rates would revert back to variable and added a buffer, so I don’t see the nature of the loan as ­creating the problem.”

Well he would say that, wouldn’t he?

Westpac chief executive Peter King. Picture: Nicki Connolly

Anyway, we can sympathise with King’s frustration; a bit like Quixote, he’s fought against these cliffs before, the last occasion being February 2021 when the great fear was of a “fiscal cliff” rather than a mortgage cliff, caused by the inevitable windback of JobKeeper.

“I don’t like this cliff analogy,” he grumbled at the time. “We’re just going through stages and I think they are steps now. We’ve managed, in aggregate, the transitions pretty well.”

For the record, the cliff is a metaphor.

 

Superyacht for sale

Anyone have a spare $240m lying around? That’s the ballpark figure to buy Brett Blundy’s superyacht Cloud 9, currently on the market and moored in Barcelona, where it’s undergoing some retooling. Too much? It rents for charter at just under $2m per week.

The former chairman of BB Retail Capital fitted out his pleasure craft with a number of quirky settings upon purchase some years ago.

Its many suites are named after Star Wars characters – the master bedroom being Yoda, of course; it’s apparently his favourite series – and chess boards have been placed in various locations. Why? It’s said that Blundy’s fond of playing multiple games over multiple days, meaning he’s unlikely to be one for the cheap and nasty Fried Liver Attack.

The interior is all very sleek and polished, with a full complement of staff and reportedly some extra headroom in the gym so Blundy, a tall fellow, doesn’t jam up against the ceiling while he’s running on the treadmill.

The previous owner, American businessman Eric Smidt, clearly didn’t have that problem.

As to what’s motivating the sale? We can only assume he’s trading up for a newer model.

Off the menu

It’s into the deep freeze for Barrenjoey! RBA governor Philip Lowe is ending all lunch dates with the investment banking minnow following that inconvenience of his Chatham House remarks being leaked by a participant.

Lowe told an emotionally airtight Senate estimates hearing on Wednesday that there would be fewer private meetings with bankers prior to the release of monetary policy statements in the future.

On Friday he tweaked that slightly during a second appearance in parliament, this time singling out Barrenjoey over the failure of some mook in the room to keep discussions with the RBA off the record. So gauche!

Barrenjoey’s off the menu for Philip Lowe. Picture: Gary Ramage

“That courtesy was not extended after that Barrenjoey lunch, and I decided, given that, we would not be doing further functions with them for quite some time,” Lowe said, confirming a second lunch planned at the investment bank this week – this time with deputy RBA governor Luci Ellis – had been cancelled.

“We need to be able to have conversations with people without the other side of that conversation running off to the press. And when that happens, it destroys trust, and there are consequences from that, and that was why we cancelled the further functions with Barrenjoey.”

Slow justice

The wheels of justice move slowly, but no slower than the Supreme Court in Western Australia. More than two years have passed since Mirabella Nickel and Mining Standards International began awaiting judgment in a legal dispute over a soured deal.

In a nutshell: Mirabella went into receivership, MSI attempted to buy its assets, and the receivers – KordaMentha – returned the deposit and ended up selling to another entity. Off it went to court.

It seems MSI, which sought redress over the matter, became so frustrated by the obscenely slow movement of the proceedings out west that the company saw fit to take fresh action in the Queensland Federal Court.

Even the judge appointed to the case, Roger Derrington, saw fit to snipe at the glacial progress of the original matter during a recent hearing.

“It’s two years old,” he said, and his mood hardly lifted when informed that a decision was expected at the end of February. Doesn’t sound like he has much faith that it will. “The road to hell is paved with good intentions,” he said.

Teal in the lead

And briefly, we’re hearing teal candidate Jacqui Scruby is comfortably ahead on some internal polling taken of the NSW seat of Pittwater, held by the outgoing Liberal minister Rob Stokes. Fretting Liberals say with just enough work there’s a hope of pegging back her advance. One problem is that Stokes’ anointed successor, Rory Amon, doesn’t have enough name recognition in the northern beaches electorate. Stokes, of course, never had that problem. A second qualm is that trying to hold the seat will probably divert resources from critical marginals, especially those in western Sydney.