Oil Search communications boss Matthew Park quits in wake of CEO exit, merger

Former chief Keiran Wulff isn’t the only departure at Oil Search. Picture: Jane Dempster/The Australian.

It has been a busy month for the folk at Oil Search, with the exit of the group’s chief Keiran Wulff under mysterious circumstances and merger negotiations on foot with local gas outfit Santos.

Times like these you need a good spinner in your corner.

So imagine Margin Call’s surprise to learn the group’s well-­regarded VP of communications and media, Matthew Park, has only in recent weeks made for the exit.

Park, who had been the company’s head of comms since 2018, was the noted media contact on the company’s ASX announcements up until July 20, at which point spinner-for-hire Ian Pemberton abruptly stepped in.

Difficult, we imagine, to be an effective communicator when there’s little commitment to keeping even those inside the tent properly informed.

Park’s exit, while not game-changing on its own, adds to the growing list of executive departures at the firm since the end of last year.

There was long-serving head of investor relations Ann Diamant, who made her exit in December, chief investment officer Nicole Beavan, who served just 12 months to February, and let’s not forget CFO designate Ayten Saridas, who made it just three months into her appointment.

All up, it all makes for not such a good look for the group, even if it is in the grips of due diligence for a $22bn mega-merger set to create one of the local market’s biggest oil and gas players.

Recall it was the company’s handling of Wulff’s exit, whether related to a whistleblower complaint or a health issue, that had plenty in the market pondering the cultural goings-on inside the company’s Sydney HQ.

Another exit just leaves Oil Search management largely of the white, over-50, male variety.

Those matters are now the remit of acting chief Peter Fredricson, who despite only four months in the executive team got the promotion to chief upon Wulff’s sudden exit.

Meanwhile chair Rick Lee faces pressure after bungling the initial disclosure of the deal.

All this while former chief Peter Botten rides out his non-compete clause, set to expire later this month.

Margin Call reached out to Park and Pemberton, both of whom declined to comment.

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Gaming board exit

There has been a quiet exit from the Phil Crawford-chaired NSW gaming regulator that is overseeing the issuance of a ­licence that would allow James Packer’s Crown Resorts to open its Sydney casino.

As the state government’s Independent Gaming and Liquor Authority continues its detailed assessment of Crown’s management and operations following the findings of the Bergin report that the company was “unfit” to hold the licence to run the Barangaroo casino, Margin Call has learned that Sydney lawyer Nicky McWilliam has finished up as a member of ILGA’s board.

McWilliam is the wife of businessman and lawyer Bruce McWilliam, who is a key lieutenant of billionaire Kerry Stokes, close friend of and mentor to Crown’s 36 per cent shareholder James Packer.

Together, the two have a sprawling property portfolio, of which they recently sold a gem in Point Piper for about $33m.

Nicky and Bruce McWilliam.

But we digress. Only in recent weeks did commissioner to the unfolding royal commission into Crown in Perth, Neville Owen, declare his longstanding friendship with Stokes as proceedings in the west got under way.

Nicky McWilliam had served on the ILGA board since 2016 and left in May after five years as Crawford was deep in discussions with Crown management, led by executive chair Helen Coonan, towards reforms at the gaming giant that would see Crown fit to be the casino licensee.

For now, the gaming floor at Crown’s $2bn casino and gaming facility is locked shut pending reforms that the ILGA can be satisfied with. Indeed, the broader luxury Barangaroo property is also closed due to Covid restrictions.

The McWiliams recently traded this Point Piper mansion for $33m.

It is understood approval for the appointment of the new ILGA board member to replace McWilliam is in progress with the NSW government and the ILGA’s executive council.

Meanwhile, former Crown Resorts executive chair John Alexander is set to appear before the Perth Casino Royal Commission on Thursday.

The former newspaper editor and media exec was a Packer representative on the Crown board. JA remains a director of Stokes’s Seven West Media, but has kept a low profile since exiting Crown in January last year.

With a big cheque, of course.

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Change in airwaves

Southern Cross Austereo disc jockeys, the likes of Kyle and Jackie O, are usually the ones raking in the big cash, but could it be that the group’s management is finally getting their time in the sun?

The listed group, whose ailing performance has in recent years put the vesting of any incentives well out of reach, took a different approach to its bonus policies this year, acknowledging the difficulty of schemes past.

Noting the “severe impact” of Covid-19, chair of the people and culture committee Helen Nash struck out the long-term incentives on foot for the three years prior.

Grant Blackley and Eddie McGuire back in 2017.

In their place, and after investing in a $56,000 KPMG-written report, a new “bespoke” scheme was debuted in the group’s annual report lodged on Wednesday, setting out just one condition: total shareholder return.

Twenty of the group’s top brass, including chief executive Grant Blackley, who took home $1.6m this year, are now each a party to a new three-year incentive program tested against total shareholder return performance to June 30, 2023.

The new deal gives Blackley $67,000 in rights, with a potential multiplier of 2.5 times if the company can boost its TSR by more than 150 per cent.

As the company itself notes, “an absolute TSR of 100 per cent over the three-year performance period would restore the company’s market capitalisation to the average level experienced during the 2019 calendar year”.

On second thoughts, maybe it’s not that easy after all.

Good thing the group’s short-term targets are easier to reach – especially with budget targets revised quarterly for the year during the pandemic.

Nash and her people committee ruled that despite key management personnel overachieving on targets, their bonuses would be scaled back given such targets “were arguably easier to achieve”.

Matthew Park

Bruce McWilliam

Grant Blackley