Magellan chairman Hamish Douglass’s big birthday bash

How rich is Magellan Financial Group chair Hamish Douglass?

Rich enough to book out the entirety of the Wolgan Valley ultra luxury resort — all 40 cabins! — for a multi-million-dollar 50th birthday extravaganza.

“It was extraordinary,” was the consensus of nervous guests Margin Call spoke to about what the filthy rich fund manager hoped would remain a secret event. Nice try, Hamish.

Hamish Douglass, co-founder of Magellan Financial Group. Picture: Hollie Adams

Honestly, there was no way Douglass — last valued at $617 million on the Stensholt Index — was going to keep under wraps the weekend party he threw for himself (a bit over four months after his 50th birthday in August) and wife ­Alexandra, who turns 50 next month.

Inside the marquee at Hamish Douglass’s 50th birthday extravaganza.

Wolgan — or to use its overblown full name: Emirates One&Only Wolgan Valley — is a favourite among celebrities and the Instagram crowd.

As the mountains of pink flowers and scores of candelabras were last week brought ­on site ahead of the three-day knees-up, locals wondered, was someone famous on their way?

No, someone rich. And someone secretive.

We understand Douglass made the various helpers — overseen by luxe party planner Benita Kam’s BNT Management — sign confidentiality agreements, in an attempt to keep the event secret.

Points for optimism.

The lavish table inside the birthday marquee.

As the self-appointed horseriding expert Andrew Broad ­reminded us all this week, the ­indiscretion of human beings should never be underestimated.

“The shindig cost $3m,” said one source close to the marquee.

“So lush,” said another.

The almost 80 guests — most of them part of the Douglasses’ extended family and not among their number fellow Magellan co-founder Chris Mackay — arrived on Friday to settle in, before heading into a giant, purpose-built, party marquee for a Great Gatsby-themed Saturday night.

DJ Brian B at the decks.

Flown in for the occasion was New York luxury events DJ Brian B, who along with his work for Douglass on Saturday night has played parties for Elton John and Gwyneth Paltrow.

Also on entertainment duties: a host of petite dancing girls with giant feathers.

Douglass at first wouldn’t comment on the party other than to say it was a “family event”.

Later he threatened to blacklist The Australian for 12 months if we reported on it.

Nice try, Hamish.

Besen turns 95

He’s almost five times as rich as Wolgan Valley party animal Hamish Douglass, but retail billionaire Marc Besen was relatively restrained in his 95th birthday celebrations.

More than 100 guests braved Melbourne’s inclement early summer weather for the afternoon birthday bash under marquees in the gardens of his Toorak mansion on Sunday.

The Besens are one of the nation’s richest families, best known for founding the Sussan retail fashion chain and, now perhaps even more, for their philanthropic pursuits.

On Sunday a string of guests including Alex Waislitz (Besen has been one of the billionaire investor’s big-name backers in his Thorney stable of funds), Cormack chairman Charles Goode and Myer Foundation president Martin Myer were served by waitresses clad in pink as they paid tribute to the Besen family patriarch, who gave a moving speech largely in honour of wife Eva, the sister of another billionaire, shopping centre magnate John Gandel (who couldn’t make it due to pressing business overseas).

Arnold Bloch Leibler managing partner Mark Leibler, one of Besen’s closest advisers, said a few words, as did Besen’s daughter and Reserve Bank director Carol Schwartz and his son Daniel Besen, better known for once owning Melbourne’s most expensive house in the billionaire’s row of Towers Road in Toorak.

Rounding out the Besen clan was Schwartz’s younger sister Debbie Dadon, who chairs the family’s philanthropic foundation, and her elder sibling Sussan boss Naomi Milgrom, who — to link this thing with that — was one of Hamish Douglass’s cornerstone investors in Magellan a decade before it became the $4.3 billion funds marketing machine it is today.

AGL picks Redman

We weren’t wrong.

A week after Margin Call revealed Graeme Hunt’s AGL board had met to decide who should permanently replace Andy Vesey, what did they do yesterday?

Announce that interim CEO Brett Redman would replace Vesey as the energy company’s permanent chief executive. Just as we flagged. Although Redman’s not yet the boss. Despite getting the nod from Hunt’s board after acting in the top job for four months, he remains the interim CEO until January 1.

That’s because the US-based Vesey — who we also flagged was going weeks before Hunt made it official in August — is still being paid the big bucks until December 1. The exiled $5.8m man remains at the top of the AGL payroll “in an advisory capacity to the board”.

Only two more weeks until that lark comes to an end.

Raring to fight

ACTU secretary Sally McManus and president Michele O’Neil couldn’t be clearer: the peak body of the union movement is coming for corporate Australia.

The pair didn’t even wait for the end of day three of Bill Shorten’s coronation (officially called the ALP national conference) before they headed to the Qantas lounge at Adelaide airport. They had rules to change. CEOs to fight. Finger food to eat.

Sally McManus and Michele O’Neil in the Qantas lounge.

One of those CEOs is Qantas boss Alan Joyce (who, this Christmas, has a new neighbour in his swish Sydney apartment building, after occasional occupant Andy Vesey abandoned the harbour view joint in August).

McManus and Joyce have been sparring over the airline’s new enterprise agreement. It’s no secret negotiations have been robust. Joyce clearly hasn’t yet exercised the nuclear option and revoked the ACTU pairs’ lounge passes. Must be tempting.