Perpetual’s long list of dud deals; Paul Skamvougeras expanding Oatlands Capital

Perpetual chairman Tony D'Aloisio. Picture: Hollie Adams

With hindsight, Perpetual’s demise and sale to PE behemoth KKR falls into the category of all things inevitable but unexpected, given CEO Rob Adams’ insistence on growing the firm through intensive acquisitions, ill-conceived as this experiment seemed to some inside the tent – but certainly not chair Tony D’Aloisio, who provided much encouragement.

The only ray of light out of this strategy has been the buyout of Boston-based Trillium, which hasn’t performed so badly, but the spend on that purchase ($54m) was tiny compared to what was outlayed on the cavalcade of mega-duds that followed. We’re thinking Perpetual’s buy of Texan-based Barrow Hanley ($US319m), which saw clients and funds under management retreat sharply just 18 months later. And anyone pointing out that FUM is up ought also to note that markets are up, generally, masquerading the impact of the net outflows.

Next was Perpetual’s takeover of Pendal, a disaster of similar proportions that caused immense concern internally, prior to the purchase. More than enough people were shouting hoarse not to go ahead with it, but neither Adams, who’s leaving, nor D’Aloisio, who’s facing similar pressure to GTFO from former equities lead Peter Morgan, among others, paid any mind to those concerns.

Is it any wonder that Perpetual’s more recent former head of equities, Paul Skamvougeras, announced his retirement just three months after the Pendal acquisition went public? Skamvougeras absolutely hated the deal. And yeah, the two matters are linked.

All of which is to say that Perpetual’s 138-year-old brand was once famed for turning out funds management royalty in this country. Harder still to remember, it once carried a clean balance sheet and zero debt. Thanks to the excess and pig-headedness of Adams and D’Aloisio, Perpetual’s arrived at a hopeless position. It’s debt-laden, hobbled and selling its corporate trust and wealth divisions just to make bank. Not to mention the sale of its name, to KKR, which is arguably the greatest humiliation of all.

Sowing Oatlands

Meanwhile, on the topic of Paul Skamvougeras, word around town is that he’s acquired office space in Sydney plus an AFS licence, a signal that he’s possibly on the verge of expanding his offerings at Oatlands Capital, which he registered mid-last year, and which we’re reliably informed is a family office venture. Skamvougeras wouldn’t take our calls, but we’re assured he’s not taking external money … just yet.

Paul Skamvougeras.

Silence on romance

Nothing but silence out of the Department of Parliamentary Services on Wednesday when we asked whether secretary Rob Stefanic’s relationship with his deputy Cate Saunders was being probed further in-house. Not that there’s anything wrong with an office romance – let there be a thousand blossoms bloom, as far as we’re concerned. The only reason we’re spending any more time on it is because there’s a wrinkle to be smoothed out over Saunders’ exit package – an incentive to retire payment. The suggestion is it might have been cleared by Stefanic himself, which could trip all sorts of wires if the relationship wasn’t declared. A DPS spokeswoman confirmed the inquiry had been received, but didn’t provide a response.

Slap for silk

CS Energy caused a chuckle this week when it engaged top Brisbane silk Damien Clothier KC to handle a return of subpoena hearing in the Federal Court, this for an ongoing case between the energy provider (owned by the Queensland government) and investors in the troubled Callide C coal-fired plant.

Drafting a KC for such a routine matter was bold enough – except Clothier didn’t even bring the documents required by the court. All he carried with him was an argument that the files being sought by the other side might be the subject of legal professional privilege.

Which is all well and good, except the time to cavil over such matters is before the subpoena’s due date, not while you’re standing empty-handed before a judge answering what is, effectively, a court order.

Damien Clothier KC has raised the ire of a judge in the Federal Court.

Accordingly, Justice Roger Derrington was most displeased and delivered a slap from the bench that would have left a junior counsel reaching for aloe vera. “The time for compliance expired 20 minutes ago,” he huffed, and then railed against the arrogance of this trend. “People do think that orders of the court are advisory, aspirational guidelines, particularly the big firms … They think judges just make advisory guidelines. And we will comply if we want to and if we don’t, we’ll just make orders amongst ourselves. That’s the sort of the impression we get all the time, and it’s just not right.”

Lendlease delay

And still no word from the bigwigs at Lendlease of when they’ll set a date for their strategy update with investors. We’re starting to wonder if this delay to the timing is deliberate. Suffice it to say the company assured everyone in February of a date to be set in May, but here we are with the notice period shrinking by the week.

Lendlease investors are already lining up to kick the board over a suite of strategic failures that have tanked the share price. They’re doing it in print and on television! We imagine no amount of silliness with a date will deter Tanarra’s John Wylie (a 3 per cent shareholder) and Allan Gray’s Simon Mawhinney (a 6 per cent shareholder) from making space in their diaries for the spectacle.