Party boys wing it on Billion Air
It’s a truth universally acknowledged that billionaires do not fly commercial. So imagine the scene when billionaire investor Alex Waislitz was informed that something was wrong with his Bombardier Global Express.
Waislitz — who turned 61 on Saturday and whose fortune was last valued at $1.39 billion on the Stensholt Index — was off with 10 friends for a boys’ birthday golfing weekend in New Zealand.
Shortly after the plane left Essendon Airport on Saturday morning, the pilot shared the terrible news — something was wrong with the hydraulic hose of the jet Waislitz bought last year.
They had to land back in Melbourne.
For the super rich, things don’t get much worse. This was a full-blown billionaire birthday crisis.
On Planet Earth, a person in such a situation would likely buy a commercial flight on Qantas, Virgin or whoever else.
Things are different on Planet Billionaire.
Waislitz — who is still dating the glamorous, twenty-something entrepreneur Rebekah Behbahani — phoned a friend: a billionaire friend, Morry Fraid of the Spotlight haberdashery fortune (who, we hear, is a discreet investor in Waislitz’s Thorney vehicles).
Fraid — whose family was last valued at $1.61bn — picked up a Global Express of his own a few years ago. Could he help a friend in need?
Of course. Within three hours, Waislitz and the gang were aboard Air Fraid and on their way to verdant New Zealand.
And all without the indignity of having to call Anthony Pratt, Waislitz’s brother-in-law, to ask if he could spare one of the Visy fleet.
Looks good on paper
When you have hundreds of millions of dollars, it’s easy to overlook small change.
Take Liberal Party federal honorary treasurer and Helloworld Travel boss Andrew Burnes, whose business seems to have forgotten to charge Finance Minister Mathias Cormann for a Cormann family holiday to Singapore at the start of last year.
Cormann, apparently on learning this week about the matter, immediately paid the $3000-odd for the trip to Burnes’ Helloworld, in which the party functionary and wife Cinzia Burnes hold a 35 per cent stake.
Helloworld, which is chaired by Myer chair Garry Hounsell, has a billion-dollar, almost three-year contract with Cormann’s department that expires mid-next year for the provision of travel services across the federal government.
Helloworld’s business has hummed along since that contract was signed in mid-2017.
Around the time Helloworld won the federal work, its shares were trading at about $4.55. They’ve since risen to $5.64 yesterday to capitalise the group at $704 million.
That rise has taken the value of Burnes’ share in the group from just under $200m to almost $250m.
Former federal treasurer Joe Hockey — now Australia’s ambassador to the US — is also a significant Helloworld shareholder, enjoying the business’s recent success.
The company’s 2017 annual report shows Hockey had about 216,000 Helloworld shares before the October government deal was signed, then worth about $980,000.
Yesterday, those shares had a value of more than $1.2m, while his now slightly larger stake of 228,000 shares is worth $1.3m.
Poor paperwork, but rich pickings.
It’s party time
Good news for the boatshoe brigade: the Victorian branch of the Liberal Party won’t be forced to run its federal election campaign out of the Subway at the base of its now sold Melbourne headquarters.
The local arm of Swiss watch company Rolex, which late last year agreed to buy the 104 Exhibition Street bricks and mortar from the party, has agreed to let Lib state director Simon Frost, his team and his boatshoe-wearing campaign volunteers stay put in the CBD building until at least the end of this year.
Rolex paid $37m for the site. The deal settled at the end of January and the Libs — fiscal conservatives that they are — immediately paid off the $2m line of credit held with NAB that was taken out by the then cash-strapped party against the building in 2016.
The party is now close to signing a deal with the Swiss to stay put in the headquarters until another home can be found.
The Liberal machine is open to either buying another building or entering a long-term lease for the party’s use.
Meanwhile, new party treasurer John O’Connell — a special counsel at law firm Minter Ellison specialising in financial services and funds management — is working with his new colleagues on plans for the establishment of a new fund to hold the millions raised from the mega real estate sale.
For now, the loot is being held in party vehicle Vapold Pty Ltd, of which Richard Alston and Alan Stockdale are directors.
They were hardly going to park it in Charles Goode’s Cormack Foundation.
Still in firing line
She might have escaped the Senate estimates firing squad, but there was still plenty to make Australia Post boss Christine Holgate uncomfortable yesterday.
While she’s no longer running the pill-popping Blackmores, its precipitous 25 per cent fall was a bit close to home. More like that could take the shine off Holgate’s hitherto golden CV.
The numbers Holgate released at Australia Post were only slightly less ugly.
At least the government-owned business doesn’t have a share price to reveal the displeasure of others, only an oddly disengaged group of senators.
Jet-setting Craven bets big on Darwin
The talk of Darwin has been a stealthy visit by crypto billionaire Ed Craven who quietly touched down on Thursday on a mission to submit the paperwork for a coveted local bookmaker’s licence.
Cup-winning trainers, an accountant and the missing $460k
What’s happened to hundreds of thousands of dollars in Melbourne Cup prize money? It’s a story of debt, bankruptcies, court battles, and disputes between friends and business partners.