Old wealth behind hipster Samuel Davide Hains

Illustration: Rod Clement.

Melbourne’s super private billionaire Hains family has a hipster in its midst.

It turns out the young prankster at the centre of the fashion scandal that rocked Fairfax’s The Age newspaper last week is a grandson of David Hains, who is worth an estimated $2.5 billion, resides at the pointy end of Australia’s richies list and jealously guards his family’s privacy.

Samuel Davide Hains, who we can reveal is a third generation member of the intensely private (and intensely rich) Hains family.

As is becoming a bit of a trend among the nation’s richest families, Hains’ progeny have a different approach to publicity.

Twenty-something web developer Samuel Davide Hains made the cover of Fairfax’s tabloid for being a “Melbourne Man”. To editor-in-chief Mark Forbes’s great embarrassment, young Hains was later outed as a fake hipster. His back-to-front vintage overalls were satirical, not ironic.

The whole affair was cooked up by Hains’ freelance fashion columnist friend Tara Kenny.

It’s a fabulous aberration for an otherwise intensely private family.

Samuel's grandfather, billionaire David Hains.

Indeed, the sons and daughters of David Hains must all agree before any public comment is made about their conservative investment group, Portland House.

The faux hipster’s dad Stephen Hains, 56, helps drive Portland House, which has a discreet presence at the top of Collins Street.

Young Sam’s taste for fame is not a complete mystery. His mum is American actress Jane Badler, the rat-eating star of 80s TV sci-fi drama V.

Sam’s brother Harrison also appears to be more Badler than Hains. Harrison is following in his mother’s footsteps — minus the rat — and is seeking to carve out a career as an actor/model (in the footsteps of Zoolander “Slashie” Hansel) based out of Los Angeles.

While the cat’s away

Billionaire gaming mogul James Packer might be flitting about Europe in trackies and Crocs with his betrothed Mariah Carey, but rest assured work continues towards the demerger of the Aussie operations from the offshore siblings of the $9bn Crown empire.

Mariah Carey and James Packer on holiday in Capri, Italy.

Packer has asked ASIC’s Greg Medcraft to consider the bonafides of a new foreign vehicle Crown Resorts (International) Limited, which is expected to hold the gaming and property company’s interests outside Australia.

Crown general counsel and secretary Michael Neilson is hard at it, lodging the paperwork with the regulator, all while Packer walks the streets with his Fantasy fiancee.

Medcraft’s considerations are expected to take at least two months.

Taking the sun

Also holidaying in the vicinity of Packer is the family of his trusted, and then not trusted, and now trusted again adviser, Matthew Grounds, the head of UBS Australasia.

UBS boss Matthew Grounds is also enjoying a holiday. Picture: Renee Nowytarger/The Australian.

The Grounds are enjoying a European summer with an itinerary notably similar to Packer’s — Capri here, Saint-Tropez there.

A spokeswoman from UBS wasn’t available to comment on whether or not it was a working holiday, or confirm rumours that Grounds had — in the fashion of his loaded client — been twinning in Crocs.

Fox on the run

Moving from Packer’s super yacht Arctic P(last spotted in Saint-Tropez) to Lindsay Fox’s “Love Boat”, the theatre for the 79-year-and-three-month-old trucking billionaire’s ongoing floating “conception party”.

Lindsay Fox's Love Boat was last spotted in Dubrovnik.

Local fishermen report that Fox’s enormous, loved-up cruise vessel has travelled from Greek to Croatian waters — and was last spotted pulling into Dubrovnik. Dobro došli!

Selfies by the sea

Elsewhere in the Mediterranean, we couldn’t help but notice the merging of the third generations of two other great Melbourne moneyed families, as the gorgeous Georgia Geminder (model code name: Georgia G) and lightning fast 400-metre specialist Chris Baillieu frolic about the Greek Islands.

Chris Baillieu, Georgia Germinder and their selfie stick are frolicking in the Mediterranean.

Bless the indiscretion of today’s young rich!

Georgia is one of the four children of billionaire packaging couple Raphael (chairman and major shareholder of the booming Pact Group) and Fiona Geminder (daughter of the late Richard Pratt), while the handsome Chris is a scion of Melbourne’s expansive Baillieu family.

Meanwhile, back at home Georgia’s parents continue their epic redevelopment of Kooyong heritage mansion Thanes, which spans six house blocks and straddles two streets, and has now been under way for more than three years.

Nightmare unfolds

Staying with the indiscreet, the unfolding drama that is the life of Sydney publicist Roxy Jacenko is another twist for Kirsty Thomson, the executive producer of Hugh Marks’ leaky flagship 60 Minutes.

Roxy Jacenko has revealed the awful news of her breast cancer diagnosis. Picture: AAP Image/Joel Carrett.

Fresh from the fallout from the show’s Beirut kiddie-snatching scandal, 60Minutes is piecing together a report on the self-anointed PR queen, whose hubby Oliver Curtis is holed up at Parklea Correctional Centre in Sydney’s west after being convicted of insider trading.

Jacenko, mother of two, and whose clients include perhaps the most indiscreet twenty-something heiress of them all, Francesca Packer, has revealed the awful news that she has been diagnosed with breast cancer. Her mum Doreen Jacenko is a survivor of the same disease. Indeed, Curtis’s mother-in-law declared in her recent sentencing submission for Oli that he had helped her through difficult times in the aftermath of her breast cancer.

In a tragic concurrence you wouldn’t dare script, Roxy was diagnosed at the start of July, about a week after Curtis went to jail. He now has until July 22 to give notice of any appeal against the guilty verdict or his one-year minimum sentence.

Seen the light

Sacked ANZ trader Etienne Alexiou’s quixotic tilt against Shayne Elliott’s ANZ came to an end this week.

Former banker Etienne Alexiou. Picture: Nine News.

Family reasons — and legal bills that had grown well into the hundreds of thousands — are apparently the reasons.

Not that Alexiou should be too bad off. He picked up $5 million in November 2014, just before he was stood down from what was then Mike Smith’s bank.

Still, no Mediterranean holidays for Alexiou.

Rather, we hear his moment of clarity to end his $30m case against ANZ came while on a recent holiday on Lizard Island in Queensland. There’s nothing like the natural beauty of the Great Barrier Reef to put money matters into perspective.

Roosters reunion

Phil Scanlan’s annual alliance knees-up — the Australian American Leadership Dialogue — kicked off yesterday with drinks at the Kennedy Caucus Room, one of Washington DC’s better spots. John McCain was a special guest.

Stephen Conroy and Wayne Swan in 2011.

Attendance is being closely monitored by some alliance watchers, as it is the first AALD gathering since the American arm of Scanlan’s ensemble amputated itself last year.

The drawn-out election result hasn’t helped either, as ambitious members in the Coalition lobby for jobs in Malcolm Turnbull’s next ministry.

Kim Beazley and Wayne Swan in Parliament in 2006.

Seemingly not troubled by that is former human services minister Stuart Robert. Also representing team blue are Trade Minister Steven Ciobo, who would seem to be secure in his job, and his greatly respected predecessor Andrew Robb, who left politics at the election to strike out in the private sector.

Over on the Labor side, the AALD’s co-chair Kim Beazley has been joined by two of his former numbers men: Stephen Conroy and Wayne Swan. If only Stephen Smith was along, it would be a full reunion of the group Mark Latham once dubbed the “roosters”.