Quite the case of poor timing for the Business Council of Australia, which is holding its annual dinner in Sydney on Wednesday night, on the eve of Anthony Albanese’s Jobs Summit scheduled for Canberra the very next day.
The scheduling has caused no shortage of inconvenience for a number of CEOs who are expected to attend both events. But there’s equal inconvenience for the BCA itself, with its leadership team similarly required in Canberra.
Margin Call initially learned on Tuesday that BCA chief executive Jennifer Westacott had considered catching a bus with a rabble of senior executives to shuttle them from Sydney to Canberra on Thursday morning, owing to a shortage of flights.
But we have since confirmed that some members of the BCA team have been offered seats on the Prime Minister’s VIP plane, which will see them flown down to Canberra alongside state premiers. Not a bad way to travel, or to curry favour.
We note that the BCA recently engaged the Labor-aligned lobby firm TG Public Affairs to conduct its bidding.
The BCA confirmed the travel arrangements while the PM’s office did not respond.
Going woke
Thousands of Melbourne Cricket Club members who received a copy of its annual report last week would have noted impressively high levels of woke-washing across its pages and much genuflecting to a raft of fashionable causes.
Not that we have any great issue with a two-page spread devoted to Acknowledgement of Country, or a further two-page spread outlining the MCC’s Reconciliation Action Plan.
But we query whether the report needed to be front-loaded with a further two pages to cover its box-ticking of ESG commitments, or yet more real estate to promote a multi-faith prayer room, or the purchase of a couple of golf buggies – dubbed a “fleet” – to shuttle visitors with mobility issues. All well and good to do so, mind, while burying the fact that the MCC is in its second consecutive year of losing money.
All that virtue also rings a little hollow when the board itself isn’t exactly a paragon of inclusion and diversity.
Women comprise less than a third of its membership and there’s only one person – Kalpana Ramana – who isn’t a white.
She was recruited in 2021; its most recent appointment, in 2022, saw yet another man, management consultant James Cain, given the role.
All of which, we admit, is about as fascinating as a tree in a pot, but far more piquant are the MCC’s financial accounts, which show that its eight-person leadership team received a remuneration increase from $3.5m to just under $4.2m over the past 12 months, an average of just over half a million dollars per person.
This while the MCC accepted $15m in JobKeeper payments, enabled a cash grab with a new membership category, increased membership contributions for 50-year members, and ran the MCC at a loss of $3.6m, a result not much improved from the previous year’s decline of $8.9m.
Isn’t that all a bit rich for a group that essentially runs a Boxing Day Test match, rents the venue to the AFL, sells tickets to the Melbourne public and flogs a bit of food and drink?
DJs sale progress
Woolworths Holdings has formally appointed Goldman Sachs to offload its ownership of up-market department store David Jones, with at least two buyers said to be eyeing off a deal.
We understand Goldman’s Christian Johnston is advising on the sale of the 184-year-old retailer, which the South African company acquired in 2014 for $2.1bn.
Woolworths chief executive Roy Bagattini is understood to have visited Australia and made a surprise visit to one of the chain’s department stores around two weeks ago.
It’s been a journey of furtive plays for Woolworths – no relation to its Australian supermarket namesake – which has had no shortage of offers placed on the table, including one from Solomon Lew via his Lew Private Group.
It’s understood two private equity firms are in discussions with the Johannesburg-listed company to stage a purchase, with Flagstaff Partners said to be advising one of them.
Goldman declined to comment and we received crickets from Flagstaff.
A spokesman for David Jones declined to comment on “market speculation”, especially with the store’s annual results to be released on Wednesday.
As for Bagattini’s visit, the same spokesman said he visited Australia “multiple times a year in the ordinary course of business to connect with the David Jones and Country Road Group teams”.
“Earlier this year, he (Bagattini) was pleased to be here to conduct these regular meetings in person with the David Jones leadership team, and to visit the new Bourke street department store in Melbourne and the Elizabeth street store in Sydney.”
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