Legendary David Leckie, 69, returns to Seven

Cartoon: Rod Clement.

Legendary television industry relic David Leckie is back.

Channel 7 chief James Warburton, facing challenging modern times for all the free-to-air channels, has formally secured the services of the network’s 69-year-old former managing director.

Leckie’s not tasked with turning around the television station’s fortunes like he did in the mid-2000s — just a part-time program consultant.

The consultancy won’t require Leckie be in the office, or ever skip lunch. Indeed Leckie was spotted dining yesterday at Bistro Moncur. He has tended to be a fixture there or the nearby Centennial Hotel.

Understood to be enlisted for a few hours a week, Leckie will be mentoring key young executives who will no doubt relish the insights from the respected throwback who knows about the industry’s golden age and perhaps more than anyone about the brutal business of network television.

Leckie was replaced as Network Seven boss in 2012 by the briefly installed industry outsider, Woodside chief executive Don Voelte, but retained a consultancy at Kerry Stokes’ network until 2016.

Warburton, who replaced Tim Worner last August, has consulted Leckie over the years, having worked under him as head of sales before his short stint at Channel 10. Warburton has told colleagues Leckie is one of the best TV programming brains in the country, Sydney Confidential reported..

For much of the four years since leaving Seven, Leckie has been wiling his time away between his Woollahra home, the Robertson, NSW Southern Highlands farm, and the Noosa retreat.

With a sales background after securing an arts degree with a major in economics, Leckie takes credit for taking Seven to ratings supremacy.

It was in 2002 that he was sacked at Nine, by James Packer and Peter Yates, having taken over as managing director in 1990 from Sam Chisholm.

This year Channel 7 has seen My Kitchen Rules underperform against Married At First Sight, but the network did have a win last week with the launch of Rebel Wilson’s Pooch Perfect. And the hit show Farmer Wants a Wife is set for a comeback, with the marketing pointedly suggesting the show will feature “real love”.

Yates’ birthday bash

The occasion at the weekend was the 60th birthday of former Macquarie banker -turned PBL boss turned would-be Qantas owner and Myer Family director and adviser, Peter Yates.

But it might as well have been a Macquarie Bank reunion.

Chief executive Shemara Wikramanayake led the throng of past and present patrons of the millionaires factory that made the trip to Canberra for the weekend bash, which started with Friday evening drinks at suave Ovolo Nishi hotel and ended with a long Sunday brunch at the Commonwealth Club. Then there were the bank’s younger and elder alumni, the former represented by Richard Price, Andrew Low and Michael Burn and the latter by corporate statesmen Mark Johnson and Laurie Cox.

Of course, Yates’ high-profile brother Oliver (the ex-Macquarie banker and ex-Clean Energy finance boss who unsuccessfully ran as an independent in the seat of Kooyong against Treasurer Josh Frydenberg), was also there, one of the three Yates brothers to make the Canberra trip along with former trade commissioner Tom and geriatrician Mark.

Unsurprisingly, given Yates’ long-time deputy chairmanship of the billionaire Myer Family’s investment company (a role he quietly retired from last year), there was a good smattering of Myers at the event — namely Sid, Martyn and Andrew, plus a few of their children — as well as a collection of other finance types including Ellerston Capital chairman Ashok Jacob and one of his investment directors Anthony Klok, Flagstaff banker Tony Burgess and PBB Advisory-turned PwC director Ian Carson.

One of the strangest happenings at the birthday dinner at the National Portrait Gallery on Saturday evening came when master of ceremonies, Nine’s Getaway star Catriona Rowntree, introduced a rendition of James Taylor’s hit You got a friend, which was played over the PA system. The singers were all members of Yates’s famed walking group — who hike together at exotic locations around the globe — led by RBA director Carol Schwartz playing the ukulele alongside her husband Alan on vocals and a bunch that included GRA Cosway director Mark Rudder.

Earlier in the day Yates convened his own version of an APEC summit — complete with compulsory mambo shirts for all attendees designed by artist Reg Mombassa — which included a talkfest at Old Parliament House in the House of the Representative chamber.

Leading the discussion were 2018 Australian of the Year Michelle Simmons, Baroness Susan Greenfield, ex-ACCC chairman Graeme Samuel and Australian Financial Review managing editor Joanne Gray.

Turns out Yates chose Old Parliament House for the event in honour of his late father, former Liberal member for Holt Bill Yates. Yates revealed that his father was perhaps best known as the only apiarist to maintain his beehives in the grounds of parliament.

Atlassian at large

Billionaire Mike Cannon-Brookes was in New York late last week, and popped into CNBC’s Mad Money studio to speak with the legendary Jim Cramer. They spoke on the recent black summer of Australian bushfires and the impact of the coronavirus on workplaces forcing a shift to work-at-home digital.

Cramer was most enthusiastic about Atlassian, noting Cannon-Brookes was only the second Australian to appear on the show, and had done so twice, including following the opening bell on Nasdaq in 2017.

Cannon-Brookes’ latest appearance on Mad Money came with an investment report by The Street Quant Ratings, which upgraded its rating for Atlassian from sell to hold.

The stock has been trading at around $149, down around 5 per cent below its 52-week high, but 50 per cent above its 52-week low.

The discussion didn’t get to discuss that Atlassian has weak liquidity, but rather Cramer’s view there’d been a remarkable “blowout quarter” with 37 per cent growth.

Cannon-Brookes did say
that Atlassian was about
helping humans solve complex problems together.

Cramer was keen to mention of the Atlassian-NASA link given its products were used by NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory mission to Mars.

“Every line of code went through some of our applications at some point, so we’ve kind of helped in a very small way,” Cannon-Brookes responded.

Cannon-Brookes, who sported a hoodie in 2017, this time opted for a blazer.

Coonan on board

New Crown boss Helen Coonan has quickly confirmed her commitment to the resort operator now that she’s chairman. It’s the first time Coonan has taken shares since 2011.

She bought 10,000, paying around $10.60 a share, as the share price fell to a five-year low last week. However, the shares dropped a tad further on Monday. Her fellow directors Andrew Demetriou, John Horvath, Guy Jalland, and Michael Johnston do not own any Crown Resorts shares or options, according to the 2019 annual report,while Harold Mitchell held the highest holding among the non-executive line-up.