New Crown chief’s suite attitude; Coonan to call it quits

New Crown Resorts chief Ciaran Carruthers won’t have far to walk to work.

Surely there’s no better way to show one’s commitment to a new job than by sleeping at the office. Well, it’s not exactly what Crown Resorts boss Ciaran Carruthers is doing, but he’s planning to live out of a suite at Crown Melbourne for the first three months of his tenure.

The plan from there is to resettle his family from Adelaide to Melbourne sometime later in the year, or so he told thousands of colleagues during a live-stream of his remarks from Crown’s Palladium ballroom.

“My family has called Australia home for nearly 20 years, and it has always been close to my heart. We are looking forward to beginning this new chapter in Melbourne,” Carruthers said on Monday, starting his first day in the role.

New Crown Resorts chief executive Ciaran Carruthers.

“I have stayed at Crown many times and know how dedicated and customer-focused its people are – and I’m looking forward to working closely with them, along with the governments, regulators, unions and customers, as Crown enters this new era.”

Carruthers might also wish to add the local constabulary to that list, specifically the Western Australia Police Force, which announced on Tuesday they were launching an investigation into a white-powder incident at Crown’s casino in Perth.

The scallywag involved has been identified as none other than AFL commentator Wayne Carey, who allegedly dropped a zip-lock bag with an “unknown white powder” on a gaming table last Thursday, earning himself a two-year ban from all Crown properties.

The controversy shattered what would have otherwise been a soft start for Carruthers, who can still seek advice from his predecessor, Steve McCann, on how to weather a crisis – but only until the end of the month.

 

Coonan calling time

Helen Coonan let slip in parliament on Monday night that her time as chair of the Minerals Council of Australia was coming to its conclusion.

Introducing Anthony Albanese at a dinner inside the Great Hall, Coonan closed out with some final words describing the event as her “last hurrah”, ending a post she’s held since 2019.

The dinner opened a two-day program for Minerals Week 2022, which will see the MCA board gather in Canberra to choose Coonan’s replacement, among other agenda items.

No word yet on the contenders but the MCA’s chief executive, Tania Constable, told Margin

Helen Coonan’s time as chair of the Minerals Council of Australia is coming to an end. Picture: Gaye Gerard

Call there won’t be any announcement about a successor this week, with the new chair to be named “before the end of the year”.

Coonan did not respond to a request for comment.

The other focal point of the board’s meeting will be considering the MCA’s position on an indigenous voice to parliament.

BHP and Rio Tinto, which hold board seats on the MCA, have long been supporters of a First Nations voice, especially with indigenous participation forming such a substantial aspect of the mining employment.

 

Sharing the cost

The interminable search for someone to lead the Council of Australian Life Insurers is finally gathering pace, with interviews for a CEO beginning a week ago and the long list whittled down to four remaining candidates.

But whoever accepts the CALI gig is probably going to be lumped with an almighty test of their leadership, given recent developments within the insurance sector.

This includes the decision by the Albanese government, acting on the recommendations of the Hayne royal commission, to pursue a compensation scheme of last resort for victims of bankrupted financial institutions.

There are almost 2000 backdated claims that haven’t been processed, each worth up to $150,000, or $262m in total, and that doesn’t include the establishment costs and ongoing expenses required to run the scheme.

So who’s paying for all of this? It was revealed on Monday in a meeting between Treasury officials and attendees that included the big four banks, general insurers and other representative bodies. All were told that they were on the hook for contributions.

But among the life insurers it appears that only TAL was summoned to the meeting, meaning its contributions alone are likely to be in the ballpark of $10m for the scheme.

Fortunately, TAL and other life insurers recently formed their own representative body, CALI, which will surely be tapped for help to spread the costs around.

Won’t they? After all, it was TAL’s CEO Brett Clark who spearheaded CALI’s development alongside AIA Australia CEO Damien Mu, and it’s TAL that largely picks up the tab for its existence.

Why else was it created if not to promote unity within the sector, as Clarke told an insurance dialogue so confidently last month.

“The time is right for the life insurance industry to have a strong stand-alone voice,” he said.

“Damien and I are very joined on this issue, as is the entire life insurance industry.”

So does that mean AIA Australia and CALI’s other members are going to help cover TAL’s contributions, or is unity only to be found during cost-free moments of indulgence?

We imagine that CALI’s prospective CEO has already been asked how TAL can be worked off the hook for this payment, if that’s even possible.

Some might also question the purpose of having a CALI at all if TAL is left footing the bill, or how long the TAL board will continue to support a vanity project of the CEO.

 

Right at home

Next deal for Gill McLachlan to seal is the sale of his family home in Prahran.

The AFL chief and his heiress wife Laura Blythe – daughter of recently deceased Spotless group principal Brian Blythe – have just days until expressions of interest are due on their Prahran home, for which the couple would like $11m.

The secluded digs, with dining overlooking a tennis court, have been the scene of many an annual AFL coaches’ dinner since McLachlan took over from Andrew Demetriou in 2014.

Gillon McLachlan and wife Laura with their children Sydney, Edie, Cleo and Luna. Picture: Getty Images

But as of this week, the McLachlans’ abode is not the most expensive trophy home on the market in the suburb, with MaxCap founder and former Pratt key man Wayne Lasky also selling a mansion that he and his partner, Tamara, have owned for less than a year.

The couple paid $16m for the historic Grandview Grove mansion in December and now want between $18m and $19.5m for someone to take it off their hands.

Their acquisition shortly followed Lasky and his MaxCap co-founder Brae Sokolski earning about $75m each when they sold about a quarter of their non-bank lender to Apollo Asset Management.