Mayfair 101 version 2.0 on cards; Rocky passage for PwC’s compliance report

Mayfair 101 boss James Mawhinney outside court in 2022. Picture: David Ross

Details are sketchy, but controversial investment spruiker James Mawhinney and his Mayfair 101 outfit are planning a comeback, announcing plans on the group’s website to relaunch operations this year.

Mayfair 101, despite still battling regulators in the courts, is promising investors “solid ­assets”, a “committed team” and a “bright future”.

“Mayfair 101 is preparing for the relaunch of its international private equity investment group in 2023,” the group, still led by Perth-based Mawhinney, 39, ­declares.

“We have a clear plan to make up for the challenges faced in recent years and look forward to continuing to play an important role in the development of the alternative investment industry.”

Mayfair 101 maintains corporate premises in Melbourne, with some of its corporate vehicles still active. Many others, however, are under external administration. Several fresh corporate entities have also been set up since Mawhinney’s battles with the Australian Securities & Investments Commission have unfolded, with Mawhinney as director and company secretary.

To get to Mayfair 101’s new plans, visitors to the company’s website must first wade past a lengthy “misconduct alert” that the company is forced to publish by order of the Federal Court.

The alert relates to several Mayfair entities that “engaged in misleading or deceptive conduct, and made false or misleading representations in advertisements” concerning specific investment products.

Mayfair entities were fined a combined $22m “for making false or misleading representations to investors”, who tipped $126m into the firm’s fixed-­income notes.

The regulator also sought a 20-year injunction against ­Mawhinney to permanently ­restrain him from receiving or soliciting funds in connection with financial products, advertising, promoting or marketing financial products. That matter is not yet resolved and is set to return to court later this year.

Mawhinney has also sued ASIC and its deputy chair Sarah Court for defamation in relation to a press release about his activities. ASIC is defending Mawhinney’s action.

Surely this phoenix cannot rise from the ashes?

The PwC police

The keystone cops at the Tax Practitioners Board on Tuesday threw open the file on disgraced professional services giant PwC Australia’s first six-monthly compliance report ordered by the regulator following the firm’s tax scandal.

The 21-page report came courtesy of PwC’s new chief risk and ethics leader Jan McCahey, who has been with the firm for more than two decades, but in her new leadership role about three weeks.

McCahey signed the report, dated July 14, just 10 days after she was announced as the new head of risk and ethics, replacing partner Tony O’Malley. On July 4, PwC said O’Malley was retiring.

O’Malley had only been head of risk at the firm for about five weeks, having been appointed on May 29.

But theirs are the only names noted with any management responsibility for ethics and risk at the firm in the compliance report handed to the TPB.

PwC’s chief risk and ethics leader Jan McCahey.

You would never even know that from January 1 through to the end of May, partner Sean Gregory was chief strategy, risk and reputation officer (the old title’s been reworked but responsibilities remain the same).

So it was Gregory, for five out of the six months, who was responsible for PwC’s compliance report and what the firm over that time did to comply with orders set out by the TPB following its investigation into and findings on the tax scandal.

Only problem is, Gregory was one of the partners forced out of the PwC partnership for their part in the tax scandal. He was announced on July 3 as one of the partners exiting “as a result of their failure to adequately exercise their expected leadership or governance responsibilities to prevent these actions or to address the deficiencies in culture at the firm or hold others accountable for their behaviours.”

So Gregory was overseeing compliance with the TPB orders relating to the tax scandal that he was a part of and which would eventually cost Gregory his job. Any wonder his name was left out.

It reminds Margin Call of now former PwC boss Tom Seymour proceeding to clean up the unfolding reputational crisis before it became apparent Seymour himself had been copied in on critical emails that meant he was aware that confidential material was leaked.

Just another example of PwC’s barefaced approach to managing the crisis.

Fundraising on menu

Cost-of-living crisis be damned – federal Labor wants Australia’s corporate elite to hand over top dollar for an exclusive audience with our nation’s leaders.

The Federal Labor Business Forum is asking no less than $10,000 a ticket to attend an upcoming “boardroom dinner” with Prime Minister Anthony Albanese and his Treasurer, Jim Chalmers.

The party fundraising event, which comes a long way out from the next federal election, will be a home game for Chalmers, who’s been the Member for Rankin in Brisbane for a decade, but a long way from the faithful that Albo represents in the inner-Sydney electorate of Grayndler, which he won last time around with a monster margin of 16.3 per cent.

Dinner with the PM and Treasurer will set you back $10,000. Picture: Martin Ollman

The venue for business’s secret, mid-August CBD audience with the power pair for now remains undisclosed.

But if such a pricey event is too rich for your business’s blood amid inflation and higher interest rates, there is also a more budget-friendly event that less flush execs might like to tap.

Reflecting hierarchy, it’s much cheaper to secure an audience with former Labor leader Bill Shorten, these days busy as minister for the NDIS and Government Services.

Fresh off the back of damning findings of the royal commission into the former Liberal government Robodebt scheme, you can break bread at a similar function with Bill in Canberra on August 2 for a mere $4000 a seat, or $3000 if you are a forum member.