Friend and foe bury the hatchet for Qantas book launch; Dodgy implant maker curdles the blood

There was plenty of money in the room at Joe Aston’s book launch. Picture: Nikki Short

A fine turnout at Sydney’s Hemmesphere cocktail bar on Tuesday night for the launch of Joe Aston’s book about Qantas, The Chairman’s Lounge, the guest-list studded with high-profile pals but also characters who might have once been considered adversaries, even foes.

By that we mean chaps like John Sharp, chairman of Regional Express, who worked the room despite having been thoroughly worked over himself by Aston – and derided as a fogey – during the author’s column-writing days of yore.

Hatchet buried there, clearly, and also with Sue Chrysanthou SC, who cross-examined Aston in the Federal Court and accused him of misogyny, in 2020, while acting for former Blue Sky director Elaine Stead.

But no hard feelings between them, either, although Chrysanthou couldn’t help herself during Aston’s fireside chat with Fin Review editor-in-chief James Chessell, shouting “Joe lost!” and drawing laffs as the two scribes briefly raked over the old coals of that case (presided over, we might add, by Justice Michael Lee, who just delivered a judgment against Qantas over its illegal sacking of 1700 ground crew during the pandemic).

Elaine Stead leaving the Federal Court with Sue Chrysanthou, SC, during the defamation trial against Joe Aston. Picture: Jane Dempster

But back to the room. Former Fairfax CEO Greg Hywood looked comfortable with former Nine CEO David Gyngell and journalist Pam Williams, while on the other side of the hopscotch of lounges and low tables was the triumvirate of Warner Music Australasia President Dan Rosen, his mate and former Aussie Home Loans CEO James Symond and Justin Hemmes, the owner of Hemmesphere.

The Merivale jefe made a brief appearance despite being besieged by unsavoury allegations – sexual harassment, drug use, worker exploitation – levelled by former staff about his venues.

Not that the deluge of headlines will make an iota of difference to the reservation list at Tottis. Seriously, this ain’t a crisis of Alan Yazbek proportions.

Jack Cowin. Picture: Nikki Short

John Sharp. Picture: Britta Campion

Plenty of money in the place, too, most of it belonging to billionaire Jack Cowin. But let’s not brush off the liquidity of fund managers like Ellerston Capital’s Ashok Jacob, GCQ’s Doug Tynan, WAM’s Geoff Wilson, Gersh Investment Partners’ Joe Gersh, Ariadne’s Gary Weiss (who’s growing tired of the “corporate raider” moniker) and big shots like REA Group chairman Hamish McLennan, Venues NSW chair David Gallop, plus our very own News Corp Australia executive chairman Michael Miller.

And Miller was certainly given a round of applause when Aston reminded everyone of how he (Miller) criticised Qantas and took the side of journalism, last year, over the airline’s decision to remove copies of the Fin Review from its lounges. That was after Aston penned some columns about Qantas and hurt the feelings of Alan Joyce, its CEO at the time. Joyce has been laying low in the wake of the book’s release although it’s really Anthony Albanese requiring witness protection over the fallout.

Much candour as well during the chitchat with Chessell, Aston confiding that the writing process was a bit torturous at the beginning. There were days that ended with nothing but a couple of paragraphs to show for the toil. But it got easier, he said, once the research was finally complete. “Unlike Peter FitzSimons I do all my own research,” he said, an irresistible dig, their longstanding enmity hilariously unresolved. YB

Weasel words

There’s nothing like a bit of corporate doublespeak to get the blood boiling – even worse when it’s in the service of avoiding your moral obligations.

Enter US medical device maker Exactech, which left thousands of people in pain after spending 20-odd years selling dodgy hip, knee and shoulder implants that fell apart in the body.

The result? Product recalls and some 2600 lawsuits around the globe, including a Gerard Malouf & Partners-run class action in Australia on behalf of local victims, which is suing both Exactech’s US parent company and its local subsidiary.

On Tuesday the company, owned by private equity firm TPG, proudly announced it had reached an agreement with an investor group to build the “foundation for future growth”.

Good news for victims? Nah. Exactech filed for bankruptcy in the US to cut off its legal liabilities and allow its lenders to offload the profitable bits of the company and sail off into the sunset.

Lest there be any doubt, bankruptcy documents filed in the US courts say the company plans to put its Australian subsidiary into voluntary administration within a month of its US parent, and “seek recognition of the Chapter 11 cases with respect to Exactech and any associated stay of the class action in Australia with respect to Exactech”.

Over the last few weeks both of the US-based directors of Exactech Australia have stepped down – including company chief executive Darin Johnson – leaving only its Australian finance director and a newly appointed national sales manager holding the bag on the local board.

To be clear, patients that turned to Exactech devices have had a torrid time. The company’s implants weren’t packaged properly, allowing air to get inside and oxidise the plastic parts – meaning many fell apart after surgery. This led to pain, swelling and blood clots. And a second round of surgery to fit something that actually did its job.

And how did the Exactech boss characterise the decision?

“Despite the strength of the underlying business, we face unsustainable liabilities associated with knee and hip litigation related to the packaging recalls we voluntarily initiated between 2021 and 2022,” Johnson said in a statement.

Exactech sold about 7000 dodgy implants in Australia, though it’s not yet clear how many wound up falling apart after surgeons made the cut.

And, despite the company’s claim it has provided “substantial out-of-pocket patient reimbursements and surgeon support for related expenses”, Australian insurers copped the bill for the surgical work and local victims say claiming incidental costs wasn’t easy.

All is not necessarily lost, however. There’s always an insurance company around if you need to make a claim for compensation – but that’s likely to face a significant delay.

In the meantime, the bankruptcy will “relieve the company from non-operating legacy liabilities, facilitate an infusion of new capital and better position the business to execute on its mission to be the leading surgeon partner in orthopaedics”. NE

Buyer beware …

$1bn rail writedown

What’s a $1bn writedown when compared with a nation building exercise?

That’s the latest impairment to the accounts of the Australian Rail Track Corporation, largely related to the Inland Rail project – the main rival for Malcolm Turnbull’s Snowy Hydro 2.0 as the biggest boondoggle in Australian infrastructure history.

This year’s $930m write-off is, to be fair, only half of $1.8bn writedown from last year. But still remains as a testament to the idea that you should probably do some planning before letting the Nationals spray out press releases about nation building projects. NE