Love on high seas a foxy affair
It sounds like it will be a party frisky enough to make Wayne Carey blush.
The week-long celebration trucking billionaire Lindsay Fox is throwing on his “Love Boat” (actually a cruise ship hired from the US-owned Seabourn fleet) is to mark the romantic moment 79 years and three months ago that led to his conception. He turns 80 on April 19, 2017.
Lindsay and wife Paula will share the special conception occasion — which kicks off on July 9 — with more than 100 loved-up couples and friends, who will sail with them from Athens to Venice. The meandering cruise will berth in ports most days, so guests can tap out if it all gets a bit much.
Many party goers will be fleeing wintry Melbourne. And as Carey could tell you, with so many moving parts, these Melbournite knees-ups can get a bit awkward.
Take the presence of fellow Toorak billionaire Solomon Lew, who — as we wrote last week — will follow Lindsay’s “Love Boat” in his own superyacht, the 45m “Texas” (aka “The Love Boat Part Deux”).
The flotilla arrangement will give the ragtrader and his newish lady love Rosa some private time on the high seas.
And we understand it will also give the couple a bit of distance from Solly’s wife of more than 40 years, Rosie, with whom he officially separated in 2014. Rosie is expected to be a guest of her long-time friends the Foxes on the main ship.
Which all sounds like an elegant solution to what could have been an awkward social situation for the billionaire who evidently has a thing for the letters “R”, “O”, “S”. What are the chances?
All on board
Also scheduled to be on the main “Love Boat” are the other two members of Lindsay’s “KFC” crew, Bill Kelty and Simon Crean, as well as fellow billionaires Andrew Forrest, Jack Cowin and Gina Rinehart, fellow cattle enthusiast Harold Mitchell, fugitive media identity Eddie McGuire, his most articulate defender Jeff Kennett, fruit king Frank Costa and wife Shirley, who like many guests will also take in the tennis at Wimbledon during their European vacation.
The Piano Man Billy Joel will be entertaining on the main vessel. We’ve heard he’ll receive towards $1 million for his involvement in the Festival of the Fox.
And could it really be true that the 39th President of the United States, Jimmy Carter, will make an appearance? Surely not. Although there’s no doubt that Lindsay is a big fan.
For those wondering who on earth would make such a fuss about their birthday, some backstory.
Lindsay’s exuberant approach to milestone birthdays comes from his great surprise at still being alive.
“My father got to 62,” Lindsay told Andrew Denton back in 2007. “I never thought I’d get anything past 62.”
And so every five years he holds these glorious get-togethers for his friends.
Paul Keating has even been to a few. So we won’t be too surprised if our most celebrated, and best tailored former prime minister makes an appearance at this one, too.
Perpetual reunion
On July 1, this Friday, Matt Williams will be reunited with his fellow Perpetual escapee John Sevior.
Williams is joining the boutique fund Airlie, which was founded in 2012 by Sevior, who is best known to many as a barefoot enthusiast. Hates shoes. Can’t stand them.
As recently as March, it was reported that Airlie managed about $5 billion.
So how much will it manage after Williams arrives to manage its new industrial share fund?
Chatter around the nation’s better-furnished towers reckon there’s a multi-billion-dollar sum arriving with him.
It wouldn’t be an unprecedented outflow for the extremely well-regarded pair.
About $3bn followed Sevior out the door after he left the listed Perpetual in 2011.
Williams then replaced him as Perpetual chief stock picker before announcing his departure last year. Paul Skamvougeras is now making the investment calls at chief executive Geoff Lloyd’s shop.
Bean there, mung that
Moving back to this side of the expiring financial year, and yes, Angus Aitken’s mung bean diet is over.
The former Bell Potter broker is back in Sydney after a three-week holiday in Bali.
He’s just in time to finish the last instalment of the business ethics course he was ordered to take by Greg Medcraft’s tough cop on the beat, ASIC.
It’s part of the enforceable undertaking he signed with the regulator in December over inappropriate trading of shares in Ten.
Aitken has to finish his final course by tomorrow to meet the June 30 deadline set by ASIC.
The course is held at the Ethics Centre — which sits on Castlereagh Street in Sydney’s CBD just a few towers along from ANZ’s Sydney headquarters. As we’ve mentioned before, ANZ chairman (and Aitken’s fellow diner at Azuma yesterday) David Gonski is one of the centre’s patrons. Funny old world.
Once the course is done, Aitken can focus his energies on suing fellow mung bean fan Shayne Elliott, the chief executive of ANZ, and his holidaying spokesperson Paul Edwards, over a Tweet that was sent at 12.37pm on May 24 — whatever you may have read elsewhere.
The enterprising case is being led by defamation lawyer Mark O’Brien.
Nothing like a dame
There was always going to be a mighty crowd along at the memorial service for the late Dame Leonie Kramer.
And so it was on Monday at the Sydney Conservatorium of Music’s Verbrugghen Hall.
Former prime minister John Howard and wife Janette were along to celebrate one of the nation’s most articulate conservative voices, as was Foreign Minister Julie Bishop, fellow Dame Marie Bashir, and two of Kramer’s successors as chairman (as she liked to be known) of the national broadcaster, former ABC chairman Donald McDonald and the current chairman, Jim Spigelman.
Kramer was — among many, many things — a well known monarchist. Fittingly, the audience at the service was treated to a skit from Gilbert and Sullivan’s The Gondoliers, which had a notable dig at republicanism. It ended with the line: “When everyone is somebody, then no one’s anybody!”
It won’t surprise you to hear that fellow high-profile monarchist David Flint, also in the audience to pay his respects, seemed to approve.
More wrongs than rights at the AHRC?
A case of curious priorities over at the Australian Human Rights Commission where hand-picked appointee Giridharan Sivaraman seems to prefer playing politics over action on anti-Semitism.
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