There were no shortage of Labor staffers grumbling about the cost of the annual Christmas party on Thursday – long after the hangover from the knees-up faded.
This year, the ALP staff party was outsourced to the National Portrait Gallery, forcing organisers to charge an admittance fee depending on seniority. After all, booze in Parliament House is seriously passe these days. Juniors were in for a bargain $120. Those their senior? $150 a head.
The off-campus vibes started earlier this year – after Anthony Albanese banished party political fundraisers from Capital Hill, including the major budget eve event which was sent out to the National Arboretum. Reviews from that event – at $16,000 per table – were not good.
Margin Call’s correspondents at Labor’s National Portrait Gallery party, however, were far more positive about the entertainment than the entry fee.
It was Employment Minister Tony Burke’s band Left Right Out, which has at times counted among its membership Defence Personnel Minister Matt Keogh, Assistant Minister to the PM Patrick Gorman, Macquarie MP Susan Templeman and Moreton MP Graham Perrett.
Among numbers cracked out by Burke et al was April Sun in Cuba which included an appearance by a ukulele and plenty of Hawaiian shirts, presumably in honour of former prime minister Scott Morrison’s 2019 holiday.
Still, some of the Labor staff who spoke to Margin Call noted the Prime Minister had only two days earlier managed to invite a string of reporters from the Press Gallery around to The Lodge, as is tradition, for a holiday drink.
That party was also expected be scaled back, with a strict one-hour time limit applied. No charge for admission there. Still, good luck getting a bunch of journalists away from the drinks table. The event, one estimated, dragged on for 90 minutes.
No wowserism at the National Party’s Christmas event late last month, on the other hand. Staffers and reporters were on hand for a platter of prawns, bugs – and crocodile.
Sold out
More Christmas fundraising for Albo ahead, with Labor’s Business Forum holding an end of year event hosted by AMP on Monday. “Due to capacity restrictions, this event is at capacity with a waitlist of guests,” attendees were told in a brisk note earlier in the day.
Capital capers
L1 Capital, the boutique Melbourne funds manager run by Mark Landau and Raphael Lamm, has landed its shareholders another bumper payday with financial accounts lodged with the corporate regulator showing a dividend of more than $137.6m. That’s up – way up – from the $63.3m the funds manager paid out in 2021.
That’s despite a drop in profit, from $152.4m to $69.4m, pushed lower by falling performance fees. Last year, amid a bullish market, L1 Capital managed over $202.5m in fees. This year? Some $82.3m.
Investors in L1 Capital’s funds have been somewhat less fortunate, with the flagship Long Short Fund notching up a negative 2.9 per cent return for the calendar year to date.
That compares with a 30.4 per cent return in 2021 and 26.5 per cent in 2020. The fund posted a 5.1 per cent net return in October, compared to a 6 per cent rise in the S&P ASX Accumulation Index it benchmarks itself against. Still, bets on Flutter and Mineral Resources have paid off, although a position in Alibaba performed very poorly.
“We believe Alibaba’s earnings are likely to have bottomed in Q2 and should see a gradual recovery as retail spending recovers post stringent lockdowns,” L1 Capital told its investors in a note in November. Put that in the diary.
In the midst of the pandemic, Landau and Lamm warned the fund’s portfolio was “poorly positioned for the Covid-19 outbreak” but noted the subsequent plunge in share prices around the world “created one of the best investment opportunities we have seen in our career”.
Kelley’s slam dunk
Liberal Party wannabe Grant Kelley was bundled out of Vicinity Centres, the John Gandel-backed ASX-listed mall operator he ran since 2018, after the company launched an investigation into sexual harassment and an internal report found evidence of a dysfunctional workplace. For the record, Kelley has repeatedly denied he was leaving because of the sexual harassment complaint, and has, according to the Sydney Morning Herald, met with lawyers as he considers filing legal action against the group.
That same Herald report, however, noted Kelley had “moved on” and was getting on with his next endeavour – a $100m private equity fund backed by several wealthy investors including Ross Pellegra, a sponsor of the Adelaide 36ers basketball team – which is controlled by Kelley – and Larry Kestelman.
Kestelman, who founded and sold telco outfit Dodo, also happens to own the National Basketball League.
The NBL is a great promoter of itself as a family-friendly kinda sporting outfit – no drink-driving cocaine users here – but so far silence over Kelley’s exit from Vicinity and the associated allegations of impropriety.
Margin Call wonders if the issue has been raised by other NBL team owners. Or could the joint venture be a stumbling block to public speaking?
The Price is right for Rinehart
Gina Rinehart praised the Coalition’s Jacinta Nampijinpa Price, urged the ADF to shift to Darwin and chastised unacclimatised city folk, in a recorded address to the Institute of Public Affairs.
Diamond Joe Gutnick loses the last of his sparkle
Joe Gutnick’s last hurrah is finally coming to an end, as liquidators wind up the last company in the play that was supposed to put ‘diamond’ back into his moniker.