NAB’s mixed messages

Illustration: Rod Clement.

Charles Goode’s blue blood Cormack board met in Melbourne yesterday to discuss the latest move by their young nemesis, 60-year-old Michael Kroger.

The meeting was held the morning after Victorian Liberal president Kroger — who back in the eighties was a Cormack favourite — was given authorisation, along with the division’s trustees Alan Stockdale, Richard Alston and Russell Hannan (staffer to PM-in-his-own-head Kevin Andrews), to pursue compulsory arbitration with its major donor.

Arbitration would keep the Liberals’ embarrassing family feud out of the courts and provide a definitive answer to the question that has riven the party’s Victorian division: who owns the $70 million fund, the Cormack directors or the Liberal Party?

The move to arbitration appears to be a change of tactics by Kroger. It surprised many admin members, who had only learned it was an option by reading this column last week.

Cormack’s directors — which include former ANZ chairman Goode, 79, and Peter Hay, the chairman of gold mining giant Newcrest — prefer private arbitration to litigation in public.

Although, really, they would rather the trouble had been sorted out over lunch at the Melbourne Club months ago.

Kroger’s team is pushing for the arbitration hearing to be done by December 15 — well before the Christmas shutdown.

On their preferred timeline, the judge running the arbitration process would then have until early February to make his or her decision.

The Cormack camp have made it known that they believe that timetable is far too ambitious.

Also to be agreed upon is the eminence grise who would oversee the arbitration. Former High Court justices Dyson Heydon, Murray Gleeson and Kenneth Hayne have been proposed.

Wednesday night’s Kroger-chaired administration committee, which passed the arbitration motion, took place at the Liberals’ Victorian headquarters on 104 Exhibition Street, which has had a mortgage taken out against it to plug the $2.9 million shortfall left by Cormack’s cessation of funding over what they say are governance issues. Kroger’s camp calls it “ransom”.

Readers can imagine how impressed Victorian Liberal leader Matthew Guy (who phoned into the Wednesday meeting) and Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull (who was ably represented by Mitch Fifield and his beard) are with the intractable conflict.

Their respective elections, which will each require Cormack money, aren’t forever away.

Mixed messages

What better way to push back on the idea of a banking royal commission than for Andrew Thorburn’s National Australia Bank to announce a $6.6 billion cash profit and the loss of 6000 jobs?

That’s 18 per cent of NAB’s workforce, although the number slims to net 4000 job losses once 2000 new digitally trained bodies are hired to take the Ken Henry-chaired pillar into the future. What a rotten farewell present for Australian Bankers’ Association chief Anna Bligh from her outgoing chairman.

NAB spreads the word ...

NAB’s Docklands brains trust sure didn’t help the ABA’s anti-South Australian bank tax campaign, which has the slogan “Jobs. Not taxes.” Talk about mixed messaging.

Daniel Andrews’ government was also furious about horror announcement by the Melbourne-headquartered bank.

However, taking the edge off the mass sacking was “The Bridge”: what NAB calls its “best practice career transition program” to support sacked workers.

The bank was so proud of the burning bridge they’ve created, they even put out a press release about it and pumped the message over social media, to widespread derision.

Still, to go by the hearts, at least NAB’s comms teams liked it.

Duelling bankers

Another unwavering Thorburn backer is CLSA’s Brian Johnson, one of the market’s most respected banking analysts, who appears to have challenged Morgan Stanley’s Richard Wiles to a duel over Andrew Thorburn’s honour.

“Smart CEOs under-promise and over-achieve,” Johnson said at the NAB briefing for analysts.

“I think he’s very smart. I’ll fight you to the death on that one Richard,” Johnson said.

We’ll keep readers updated on the date and venue for the banking analyst showdown. Only one will survive.

Unlucky Seven

“We haven’t had a good year,” a contrite Kerry Stokes told shareholders at Seven West’s annual general meeting at Doltone House — just over road from the media company’s sometimes racy Sydney headquarters.

There were plenty of numbers to back up the Seven billionaire’s judgment. Seven West’s share price yesterday closed down 6 per cent, giving it a market cap of $927m. That’s 30 per cent less than Hugh Marks’ $1.3bn MBA-factory, Nine.

That was despite news the board had instructed CEO Tim Worner to cut $25m worth of staff costs — a fair few jobs, unless everyone takes a mighty pay cut — over the next 12 months.

To show their solidarity, Seven West’s non-executive directors have reduced their own fees by 20 per cent — effective yesterday.

Kerry Stokes, left, Peter Gammell, centre, and Jeff Kennett

Happily, Worner as an executive director will be spared that cut.

Still, lots of ugly numbers.

Despite the one-fifth pay cut, Stokes — who caught up for dinner the night before with News Corp’s visiting chief executive Robert Thomson — was able to find two new replacements for his board.

As revealed by Margin Call yesterday afternoon, they are Teresa Dyson, corporate tax law specialist at McCullough Robertson, and Michael Ziegelaar, a fundraising and M&A expert at Herbert Smith Freehills. Dyson will be the 10-person board’s sole female director.

Better than none.

One venture’s enough

Teresa Dyson will take over the sole female Seven West director duties from Michelle Deaker, who is stepping down to spend more to spend more time on her venture capital firm OneVentures.

Deaker — who joined the Seven West board back in 2012 — had been the media company’s single female director since Gilbert + Tobin partner Sheila McGregor’s terse departure in February amid the scandal surrounding Worner and Amber Harrison, the CEO’s former mistress and Seven EA.

As media history records, Harrison went nuclear against the company back in December 2016. Amazingly, that’s the same month Deaker begun to plan her departure from the board — but for different reasons.

In early December, the funds under management at the innovation and healthcare fund OneVentures she runs doubled to about $320m.

We’re told Deaker’s OneVentures board suggested that, in light of the growth, she should reduce her extra-curricular duties.

As a footnote, continuing Seven West director Peter Gammell sits on the OneVentures investment committee. He’s also an investor.

Kerry Stokes, however, hasn’t invested in OneVentures, apparently in part to maintain Deaker’s credentials as an independent director.

But there’s no reason the billionaire can’t get involved when they launch their fourth fund. We hear there’s quite the roster of richies already involved.