Racing Victoria CEO Andrew Jones announced his resignation on Friday morning, ending so many months of white-anting and open warfare with hostile stakeholders.
We speak of Jones’s nemesis, Jonathan Munz, a billionaire with a vendetta and the chairmanship of Victoria’s Thoroughbred Racehorse Owners’ Association. Using that, Munz launched a coup of the RV board last month in which he attempted to see off Jones and spill five directors, but couldn’t quite make the plan work.
Unsuccessful, yes, but the results still tell a story: three in favour, 17 against, and 15 abstentions, and you really have to wonder what kind of support the RV board was clinging to when so many abstentions were filed that day.
Those on the fence included Victoria Racing Club chair Neil Wilson, who backed Munz until the final moments, plus the turncoats at Melbourne and Moonee Valley Racing Clubs.
No doubt a mutiny had been in play for some time against Jones, as Margin Call reported in August. This after the CEO made himself awfully unpopular by floating an idea for “Big Bash”-style racing, in which jockeys would don earpieces and work in teams. Asked in a radio interview whether his ambitions had put noses out of joint, Jones’s response was cavalier. “I couldn’t care less,” he said.
On Friday, however, a far more conciliatory tone as he emailed friends prior to the formal announcement. “I thank each and every one of you for your support over the past two years and beyond,” he wrote. “I’ve thoroughly enjoyed working with you.”
No doubt Munz was punching the air on Friday.
And the exit is undoubtedly timed with that of acting chairman Mike Hirst, who’s retiring in May and likely to be replaced by former AFL CEO Gillon McLachlan. A going theory is that McLachlan might rope in his own CEO from the old sporting code. Simon Lethlean, recently the CEO at St Kilda, is one name being thrown about.
Bondi time and tide
Much fanfare over at Joe Hockey’s Bondi Partners over the recent hirings of Liberal elder Marise Payne and Japan’s former US ambassador, Shinsuke Sugiyama.
Seems like it’s almost becoming fashionable for those in the advisory game to try to snaffle an old Japanese ambassador for their books. Hemisphere East claimed a first-mover advantage there, announcing their hiring of Shingo Yamagami last month, Yamagami-sama having been Japan’s most recent ambassador to Australia until 2023.
Anyway, Payne and Sugiyama have now been added to the comically bloated list of advisers (15 and counting!) that Bondi Partners effectively pays for the privilege of keeping their photographs on the website. Former premier Mark McGowan is one of them, and we can only wonder what “State Daddy” from the Covid era is being paid to advise upon. Hermit kingdoms? Secession?
All these hirings but barely a word about those making for the exits, and we’ve certainly heard about a spot of churn in the wake of all this recruitment. The most significant departure being that of Emma Doyle, the managing director of BP’s lobbying subsidiary in Washington, Pacific Partners.
Big, big loss for Joe and the firm given Doyle’s substantial Republican pedigree. No doubt that’ll come in handy should we witness a return of “45” to the White House come November. Is that where Doyle is turning up next, working for Donald Trump again? You bet Bondi Partners is spinning hard that it knows nothing about any of that.
Actually what they’re saying is that Doyle, once a deputy chief of staff to Trump, isn’t jumping ship at all but rather leaving because of pregnancy. In fact, she’ll be staying on with the firm in a new role as – you guessed it – another adviser!
Doyle will join the extensive advisory team alongside former Trump official Mick Mulvaney, who served with her as chief of staff to the former prez.
Another one on the way out from Bondi Partners is Brendan Morris, a senior associate at the firm and an ex-staffer to Liberal trade minister Steven Ciobo. Morris finished up on Wednesday but his face was still on the website late on Friday. Anything to avoid admitting that someone’s leaving, right? Faces are only added at Bondi Partners, never subtracted.
We hear Morris is off to WA for a job with more money.
Web shenanigans
And speaking of website shenanigans, we spotted some subtle changes on the page of Double Bay financiers Pallas Capital overnight on Thursday.
That’s after our very own David Ross broke a story concerning Pallas’s South Melbourne headquarters. Chaired by Patrick Keenan, Pallas appeared to suggest via its website that the business was seeking $5m in investment for the HQ venue, known as Palmerston Crescent, which boasts the group’s Melbourne head office.
But was that a loan top-up on its existing $24m debt facility (reaching maturity in July), or was the website just flagging the sale of $5m in units on a completed site that are ready to be flogged? The company insists the latter, but the website’s wording didn’t advance that argument coherently.
Putting out a fire can sometimes start a new one, which is what’s happened, with the Pallas team seeing fit to remove the $5m reference from the website in the hours after Ross’s piece went live. Then they scrubbed the loan amounts sought by the company for five additional projects on the boil.
A case of hiding something, or just nothing to see here?
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