Lindsay Fox, the Bradbury of Kidman

Illustration: Peter Nicholson

Praise higher powers that professional services firm Ernst & Young’s Melbourne office has been picking up fees from billionaire Lindsay Fox, his son Andrew and the family as they contemplate getting into the ­cattle industry.

Because if it wasn’t for that money, EY’s other gig in the Australian cattle industry — advising the sell side of the enormous Kidman empire — would be tough work. The success fee on that sale just keeps receding into the dusty, scrub-lined distance.

Today, the board representatives of the sons and daughters of Sir Sidney Kidman — who we have always imagined as the South Australian equivalent of Arrested Development’s Bluth family — will respond to Scott Morrison’s “preliminary view” that there is no way the Treasurer will allow a Chinese lead consortium to buy the property ahead of the federal election.

That was after the Chinese-owned Shanghai Pengxin group was the preferred bidder once again, this time with a bid of about $370 million.

The family wants to sell the portfolio as an entire package to get a premium. If it’s all together, the herd can follow the weather patterns and whatever little rain falls out there.

It makes sense if your buyer has deep enough pockets — and the right postcode.

Enter, once again, Toorak resident Lindsay Fox (postcode 3142). His clan, led by son Andrew, remains the most likely sole Australian bidder.

If the Kidman family (advised by EY’s Adelaide office) does reopen the sale process, again, ahead of the election without breaking the portfolio up (as seemed to be the case as we went to press), we have to wonder if EY’s Melbourne office (which has been working with the Foxes) has lined something up.

The Fox clan lobbed in a bit over $270m for the portfolio last time. That seems like one hell of a haircut for the Kidman posse.

And for their advisers, EY? If they got a cut of both sides of the deal — which in other circumstances we would say is impossible — they could end up doing pretty well. Funny old world.

Comfy at the top

Need more proof of how cosy it is in the boardrooms of corporate Australia?

How about this: last year when the governing body of vice-chancellor Margaret Gardner’s Monash University were shopping around for a new chancellor, they decided upon the well-regarded former chief executive of Telstra, David Thodey.

But the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation snapped him up first.

So who did Monash turn to? Thodey’s predecessor at the CSIRO, Simon McKeon.

Talk about boardroom musical chairs.

Campus sources tell us the AMP chairman was noticeably distracted at times when, decked in his red ceremonial robe, McKeon was sworn in as Monash chancellor on April 19 at the university’s Clayton campus. Victorian Governor Linda Dessau was one of many dignitaries in attendance.

In one of those strange bits of synchronicity, it seems that the day of his university ceremony was also the day of boardroom heartburn at AMP. A week later, he abruptly departed as chairman of the $17 billion financial services giant.

McKeon continues as chairman until AMP’s annual meeting in Melbourne next week on May 12.

An internal candidate is expected to take over, but in light of recent history perhaps we shouldn’t dismiss a wildcard entry by Thodey if only for symmetry.

Melbourne is so cosy that the vice-chancellors of its two top ranking universities — Gardner and Melbourne Uni’s Glyn Davis — are married to each other.

But surely, even in the Victorian capital, Thodey’s ascension would be a stretch.

A point to BCA

Finally some good news for Jennifer Westacott’s Business Council of Australia.

We can reveal the BCA has lured Christine Jackman from Lynton Crosby and Mark Textor’s mighty communications and research outfit Crosby Textor.

The former journalist — who is an item with former Al Jazeera journalist Peter Greste — will take over as director of communications. We’re told she starts after the federal election.

Clearly, she’s up for a challenge. After all, the lobby group for our biggest companies has had a bruising history.

Victorian Liberal president Michael Kroger said the group had “no idea” and was inept at selling the benefits of an increase in the GST from 10 per cent to 15 per cent.

“I think the Business Council of Australia ought to either sack Jennifer Westacott or she ought to resign,” Kroger said.

Former Labor prime minister Paul Keating soon joined the pile-on.

“(Kroger’s) assault on Westacott was completely justified,” Keating said, although his criticism was more about the substance of its policy than its failure to convince the public.

Privately, there has been much headshaking among figures in the Coalition and fellow tax reform travellers at the BCA’s slow response time.

They point to modelling commissioned by a private consultancy firm that was to demonstrate the benefits of a GST rise and tax shift, but was never released. The government scuttled the idea before the report was written.

But then, as we know well, it’s easy to criticise.

PM’s grand news

It’s no secret that our urbane Prime Minister enjoys the company of bright and intelligent women.

But soon there is to be a fresh twinkle in Malcolm Turnbull’s eye thanks to feminine wiles, with an update to our happy news last week that the daughter of the millionaire and his lawyer wife Lucy, Daisy Turnbull Brown, is expecting her second child.

Secondary schoolteacher Turnbull Brown and her Sydney University academic husband (and president of the Liberal Party’s Paddington branch) James Brown are having a girl, a sister for their two-year-old son Jack Alexander, who stole the show last September at his Grandpa Turnbull’s swearing-in as our nation’s leader.

The Browns, who were married in 2010, live in inner-city Paddington, a short drive from the Turnbulls’ Point Piper harbourfront mansion, with the PM and first lady spending much time with their so far only grandchild Jack.

Daisy’s Harvard graduate brother Alex runs his own hedge fund, Keshik Capital, based in Singapore. Before that he worked at his dad’s old shop Goldman Sachs. His wife Yvonne Wang works in public relations for TripAdvisor.

Raw power

Japanese diner Azuma in Sydney’s Chifley tower was a good spot to load up ahead of our trip to Canberra for the budget. Our national parliament is many things, but a sashimi destination it is not.

In his window alcove yesterday was Luminis Partners executive co-chairman Simon “Don” Mordant lunching with property developer David Dinte. Former NAB senior executive Craig Drummond was also in the lunch crowd and looking as relaxed as you would expect of a man still two months away from taking over as the chief executive of Mathias Cormann’s biggest float to date, Medibank Private. Former Federal Court judge Annabelle Bennett was also in the house.

And just visible in one of the Azuma’s private dining rooms: former NSW Nationals state director, now member of the upper house, Ben Franklin. Good to see him keeping a distance from the Bear Pit canteen. That place is even grimmer than the Canberra trough.

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