Off-side call for Rio’s French boss Jean-Sebastien Jacques

Illustration: Rod Clement

Margin Call may well have found the only Frenchman on the planet not excited about this weekend’s World Cup final.

And he’s running an ASX top 20 company.

Rio Tinto’s French chief executive Jean-Sebastien Jacques told us yesterday that the prospect of Sunday night’s ­decider between France and Croatia left him cold.

While Jacques is mad for rugby, he struggles to find ­enthusiasm for the round-ball game.

“I’m not really into football. If it was a rugby game I’d be in a different position,” he said.

Sacré bleu!

Instead, JS is more likely to be catching up on sleep than tuning in as Les Bleus step out on to the turf at Luzhniki stadium in Moscow. Coach Didier Deschamps’s team will instead have to rely on France’s remaining 67 million citizens for support.

What’s not to like?

For more than half of John ­Fraser’s 3½ years as Treasury secretary, Margin Call was told he was on the cusp of packing it in.

We were told Fraser, a former UBS bigwig, was over it.

And that the cosmopolitan Fraser hated Canberra, which he visited reluctantly from his bases in Sydney and Melbourne.

That the independently minded Fraser was done with Martin Parkinson, the mandarin Fraser replaced as Treasury secretary after Tony Abbott’s “night of the short knives”. (Awkwardly for Fraser, it wasn’t long before Parky was restored as head of the Australian Public Service with Malcolm Turnbull’s ascension as Prime Minister in September 2015.)

But despite the gossip, there was the pinstriped Fraser by Scott Morrison’s side in the 2016 budget lockup. And the 2017 budget lockup. And the 2018 budget lockup.

His many, sometimes bemused stakeholders continued to deal with the impeccably tailored former investment banker, who they joked spoke only in ­anecdotes.

However, yesterday Fraser announced the jig was up.

The man with a fortune from his previous career as a London-based investment banker and houses around the country and the globe is moving on from ­public service.

All expect he will return to more lucrative work in the private sector, as did Michael Thawley, the other commercially minded creature Abbott lured away from the big bucks to Canberra for a public stint that — thanks to Abbott’s demise — lasted just over a year. In 2016, Thawley returned to the investment giant Capital Group.

Fraser will be replaced by Morrison’s former chief of staff Phil Gaetjens, a far less exotic figure in Canberra.

The investment banker’s departure removes the only serious rival power centre in the public service to Parkinson, who for now is unquestionably the king of Canberra’s mandarins.

A sensible bet

After all that, it seems Chief Justice Susan Kiefel and the gang are not going to be considering the future of the synthetic lotteries operations of the Gibraltar-headquartered, NT-licensed online betting outfit Lottoland.

Lottoland’s local CEO Luke Brill had briefed barrister Noel Huntley on a possible High Court challenge to the online gambling company’s apparent death warrant, which was last month passed by the Turnbull government with the support of the entire Australian parliament — except for Senator for Bad Manners David Leyonhjelm.

But Margin Call understands a decision has been made to not go ahead with the challenge.

That seems sensible. Even if Huntley had pulled off a win, it would probably only result in amendments to the legislation.

Lottoland’s synthetic lottery business — currently the entirety of its operations in Australia — would simply be put down by another means.

We understand the business, which currently has 20 staff in Australia, will transmogrify and live on — at least as long as its sponsorship of the Manly Sea Eagles’ home ground at Brookvale (aka Lottoland) continues. That deal still has another two NRL seasons to run after this one.

In the meantime, Brill’s team is trying to work out other, less endangered online gambling opportunities to push their 700,000-odd subscribers into.

Don’t be surprised if rugby league features in those plans.

Regan a no-show

Margin Call reported at the end of May that AMP’s advice boss Jack Regan was days away from returning to his team at the wealth and insurance shop’s Circular Quay towers.

That was the plan.

Six weeks later, AMP’s chairmanship has transferred from the diligent Mike Wilkins to the indomitable David Murray.

But Margin Call understands Regan is still to emerge to once again lead his troops. He remains on stress leave.

While all planning remains for him to return, we gather the former teacher could be away a while yet.

No royal commission aficionado would begrudge Regan some time out.

The AMP exec has had the misfortune of giving the most financially consequential testimony at Kenneth Hayne’s royal commission.

During his two-day grilling by “Babyface” Michael Hodge more than $2 billion was wiped from AMP’s market capitalisation.

While costly, Regan’s was not the most dramatic appearance. That award remains with Dover owner Terry McMaster of the tragic-comic ambulance departure.

Could McMaster meet his match in the next round on superannuation? We’ll find out in four weeks when the Hayne Show continues.