No drama for Narev when insurers act up

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Child actor turned CommBank boss Ian Narev had his best “disappointed” face on as he digested accounts of unethical conduct at his CommInsure subsidiary.

It’s a role the $8 million-a-year Kiwi boss has played before, with his emotional repertoire proving a key skill in running our nation’s biggest bank.

And to think former boss Ralph Norris thought he was hiring just a strategic mind.

In line with regulatory guidelines, the eight-strong board of CommInsure’s Colonial Mutual Life Assurance comprises four independent directors, or three if you discount the five years of senior management experience at CBA enjoyed by Geoff Austin, who’s now been out of the bank for about a decade.

Towers Perrin principal Clive Aaron sits at the board table, as does insurance industry exec Anne O’Driscoll and former KPMG partner Brian Greig.

Whistleblower and former CommInsure exec Dr Benjamin Koh says his concerns were presented to the board, on which CBA’s head of wealth Annabel Spring also sits.

She knows how to handle drama though, with CBA’s financial planning scandal, which erupted two years ago, also in her backyard.

His finest role

Koh, CommInsure ex-chief medical officer, is the whistleblower straight from central casting.

On his appointment in 2013 the bank said it was “thrilled” to welcome the good doctor aboard, touting his “extensive medical and insurance experience”. As well as being trained as an orthopedic surgeon, Koh is nearing completion of a psychology PhD.

He has a PhD in business and is completing a law degree. He has a masters in arts management and sports medicine and has clinical experience in emergency medicine and critical care, as well as research experience in spinal cord injury rehabilitation.

Any wonder CommInsure boss Helen Troup showed him the door?

Dad does his bit

You can’t say UBS banker Jon Mant, the husband of Assistant Treasurer Kelly O’Dwyer, hasn’t done his bit for the country.

While O’Dwyer spent yesterday’s International Women’s Day demanding Greg Medcraft launch an inquiry into Narev’s insurance shop and wider industry practices, her hubby Mant had his feet back under the desk at the Swiss bank.

Mant had taken about six months off on parental leave to help look after baby Olivia .

Towering ambition

Millionaire Dodo founder Larry Kestelman is sweating his Vegas superyacht to flog apartments off the plan in his grandiose Capital Grand development in Melbourne’s South Yarra.

Kestelman is so confident he’s going to get the 400-apartment, 50-storey development away he’s about to drive a bulldozer through the Capital Bakeries site on the corner of Toorak Road and Chapel Street. Demolition could begin before Easter.

Kestelman is teaming with boutique Shaw & Partners to bring Melbourne money in the door for the Capital Grand sales pitch, with about 120 apartments believed to have already been sold by his LK Property Group.

Like fellow millionaire property developer Paul Little, Kestelman likes (and is transforming the face of) the fashionable suburb.

His LK Property is wrapping up the smaller Giselle boutique apartment development just down Toorak Road and has also spent $14 million for another site around the corner on Claremont Street, where Kestelman wants to build a 31-level residential tower.

Fashion’s not foreign

As hardcore fashionistas rugged up against the cold at Paris Fashion Week, our national clotheshorse, Foreign Minister Julie Bishop, popped into Melbourne for opening night of the Melbourne Fashion Festival.

Bishop knows her Armani from her Prada and was prominent with festival chair Laura Anderson, who is also a director of the Melbourne Grand Prix Corporation and the Kestelman-owned National Basketball League.

But as JBish’s earwear grows by the day, meantime in Paris the likes of billionaire Gretel Packer’s daughter Francesca continues her life of Riley, swanning about from fashion show to fashion show with her publicist Roxy Jacenko.

Roxy’s hubby OliverCurtis prepares for the latest mention of his insider trading case in the NSW Supreme Court tomorrow.

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