NAB’s Rosemary Rogers ‘must’ve been on the sweetest wicket’

 

NAB boss Andrew Thornburn’s former chief-of-staff Rosemary Rogers amassed a $6.2 million property empire before her sudden departure in December.

The string of property purchases by Rogers — who this week we learned was enmeshed in an alleged multi-million-dollar fraud — was a source of much gossip among Thorburn’s NAB executive team.

“We thought she must have been on the sweetest wicket,” one member told Margin Call.

The 20-year NAB veteran’s most recent purchase — a $3.8m, four-bedroom trophy home, with an indoor pool, in Williamstown, a lovely outpost by the bay in Melbourne’s southwest — was almost fit for a big four chief executive.

No wonder colleagues wondered, “How much is Rosemary on?”

In an interesting coincidence, Margin Call understands Rogers, who is married to tradesman ­Anthony Rogers, was on annual leave in December to move in to the Williamstown property when she was summoned by Thorburn for an urgent meeting.

At the meeting, Thorburn presented Rogers with allegations made by a whistleblower that concerned the alleged siphoning of millions of dollars from NAB that was this Tuesday spectacularly publicised by the press pack that accompanied Mick Fuller’s NSW Police.

By the end of the December meeting with Thorburn, Rogers resigned from her job as his chief of staff.

She had been at the heart of the bank in the all-seeing, all-knowing role for nine years, ­beginning under Thorburn’s predecessor Cameron Clyne.

So what else is in the Rogers property portfolio? According to Margin Call’s investigations, there were two other property purchases dated in the Thorburn era: a Williamstown apartment bought last year for $701,000 and an apartment in the Melbourne inner-city suburb of Richmond bought in mid-2015 for $735,000.

The purchase before that was at the end of the Clyne era when, in January 2014, the couple paid just under $1m for a place in Bellbrae — a skip from Bells Beach and hop to Torquay.

All up that brings the Rogers portfolio’s total purchase price to $6.2m. Based on the growth figures in Melbourne’s booming market, it’s likely now worth well over $7m. All four properties are, of course, mortgaged with NAB. Very loyal.

The most recent mortgage — the one for the swanky new place with the indoor pool — was issued by NAB in January, the month before Thorburn’s troops handed over information to the police, who are now investigating the matter.

Margin Call is not suggesting those fraud allegations are true, only that they are being investigated. Nor are we suggesting any wrongdoing on the part of Rogers, who yesterday wouldn’t return calls.

In fact, she hasn’t since we first called and texted in mid-December.

Here’s Helen

So what about Helen Rosamond, the other lady enmeshed in the alleged multi-million-dollar NAB fraud?

The 42-year-old British-born Rosamond is the executive director of the Human Group and the lady who had the misfortune of having her office raided on Tuesday by the NSW Police.

The Potts Point home in Sydney she rents — for $2500 a week, or $130,000 a year, according to Margin Call’s research — was also raided by police.

Helen Rosamond.

For about a decade, we’re told, Rosamond’s Human Group has run the executive offsites — love-ins in Port Douglas, death-by-Powerpoint days followed by wine nights in the Yarra — for NAB.

It has been alleged — but not proven and not charged — that the Human Group overcharged NAB by millions of dollars for its services over many years.

NAB’s relationship with the Human Group ended in January, about the same time that Rogers’ most recent NAB mortgage was approved.

Rosamond’s property collection is modest — at least compared to Rogers.

She has a home on Sydney’s insular peninsula of Manly for which she paid $2.65m. It’s mortgaged to Brian Hartzer’s Westpac (who, like his peers at the big four, are watching this scandal emerge from the heart of their rival with jaws wide open).

Rosamond also owns a property in St Leonards, on Sydney’s north shore, for which she paid $825,000 in 2008.

She also has two other commercial properties in her name that are leased back to the Human Group. Both were transferred in 2012 from the company into her name for $107,000 and $187,000 respectively, or $294,000.

Margin Call is not suggesting there was anything inappropriate about the transfer of ownership. Nor are we suggesting the fraud allegations are true or that there was any wrongdoing on the part of Rosamond.

Barilaro in the chair

Only three more sleeps until John Barilaro is the acting premier of NSW. God help us!

The elevation of the NSW Nats leader Barilaro, a self-employed Queanbeyan wood fitter before he went into state politics, will be triggered by Premier Gladys Berejiklian’s trip to India.

Joining the Liberal leader on her flight to Mumbai on Sunday will be an entourage that includes Berejiklian’s chief mandarin Tim Reardon and her political confidant Barry O’Farrell, the former premier and now Racing ­Australia boss, deputy chair of DFAT’s Ashok Jaco b-chaired Australia-India Council and NSW’s special envoy for India.

Berejiklian will use the trip to prepare the way from a delegation of cashed-up Australian super giants that should visit Narendra Modi’s rising giant in coming months to kick the tyres on India’s infrastructure pipeline.

Illustration: Rod Clement

The NSW Premier performed a similar role — earning acclaim within the super industry — during her February visit with the mighty Australian delegation to Donald Trump’s America.

As Berejiklian represents the Premier State abroad, it will be nervous times back at home for Barilaro’s chief of staff Mark Connell and the other members of the “B team”.

What could go wrong during the NSW Nationals leader’s four days in charge?

Well, have a look at what happened last December when Berejiklian was packing her bags for a trip to Xi Jinping’s China.

Just before his elevation to the Acting Premiership, a fawning Barilaro turned up on Alan Jones’s breakfast show to call for Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull to “give Australians a Christmas gift and go before Christmas”.

That infamous appearance earned Barilaro’s dysfunctional office a spray from Turnbull’s principal private secretary, Sally Cray.

Margin Call has learned the inexplicably self-admiring Barilaro was so chuffed after declaring war on the federal Coalition government over Cornflakes with Jones that he planned to expand on it hours later at a press conference. All this the day before Barnaby Joyce’s self-inflicted New England by-election.

We understand the man child’s planned presser was scuttled after Berejiklian’s chief-of-staff Sarah Cruickshank was informed.

What will the grown-ups in the Berejiklian government be dealing with this time around?

Vesey fronts up

Today’s the day of Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull’s visit to AGL’s Loy Yang A brown coal-burning power plant in Victoria’s Latrobe Valley with his trusty Energy Minister, Josh Frydenberg.

When Margin Call first revealed the gathering on Tuesday, it wasn’t clear if Turnbull and Frydenberg’s recent sparring partner Andy Vesey would turn up.

We’re now told he’ll be there.

AGL boss Andy Vesey. Picture: AAP

For the benefit of those readers who have spent the last fortnight in an underground coalmine, Vesey is the AGL CEO Turnbull is pressuring to sell the Liddel power plant, in NSW, to Alinta’s Jeff Dimery so its coal-powered life can be extended beyond 2022.

So make sure to tune in for it on Sky News.

Should be fun.