Rio not so grand for Stephen Conroy
He’s only just got the job, but already shadow minister for sport Stephen Conroy is unhappy over portfolio matters.
The Labor senator for Victoria is having to make do with watching the Australian Olympic team’s efforts in Rio de Janeiro through Seven’s feed — just like the rest of us.
His previous life as the minister for snowboarding/communications — enjoying winter vacations with Seven billionaire Kerry Stokes at Beaver Creek — has rarely seemed so distant.
Neither Conroy, his predecessor in the portfolio Jim Chalmers or Labor leader Bill Shorten were invited to be part of the Australian delegation of heavyweights that has journeyed to the world’s greatest sporting event.
We gather the slight has been keenly felt by Conroy, a political streetfighter with a long memory. “Labor wholeheartedly supports our Olympians, their coaches, families and support staff,” Conroy told us yesterday.
“It is disappointing I have not been able to attend the Rio Olympics to show our bipartisan support for Australia’s athletes.”
Newly reaffirmed Sports Minister Sussan Ley made it along for a brief, four-day inspection of our athletes.
A meeting of her fellow Commonwealth sports ministers — which apparently did not require Conroy — was also squeezed into the trip.
Sadly, the business of government ended her visit before even the swimming was completed.
Ley — who, poor lady, is also the Health Minister — has already returned for a cabinet meeting in Sydney.
Super for Narev
Commonwealth Bank boss Ian Narev will emerge from his self-imposed media blackout today to unveil Australia’s biggest bank profit — a number expected to be close to $10 billion.
Ahead of that, the former child actor Narev and his wife Frances Allan have been doing their own financial housekeeping.
With superannuation changes in the wind courtesy of Treasurer Scott Morrison — and despite the sustained warbling of backbencher Eric Abetz — the Paddington-based Kiwi couple has just set up a new self-managed super fund trustee company Feza Pty Limited.
That should help with life after CBA for the pair when Narev’s remuneration — currently north of $8 million a year — comes to an end.
The Allan-Narevs live in a historic $6.5m Paddo double-fronted home in Sydney’s eastern suburbs that they paid $5.1m for in 2012 after Narev — a former McKinsey & Co consultant — joined as CBA’s head of strategy from NZ.
The couple have just spent $1.5m renovating the home and have recently offloaded a nearby smaller $3m pad they had been slumming in while the transformation took place.
The financial arrangement is standard practice for our big four bosses. Narev’s counterpart at ANZ, Shayne Elliott,and his wife Nagla Khattab established their own super fund trustee company in May this year, on budget eve — which, presciently, was the day before ScoMo’s widely anticipated super tax changes.
Coleman confessional
We know who formalised House of Reps economic committee chair David Coleman’s favourite four pillars.
Step up, National Australia Bank.
Coleman, whom we flagged last week as our hot tip to lead Malcolm Turnbull’s Clayton’s big bank review, has been a shareholder of Andrew Thorburn’s Melbourne-based institution since at least December 2013, when — on winning his southwest Sydney electorate — he literally became the Member for Banks.
For the duration of Coleman’s first term in the parliament he’s held only NAB stock. In the past year he’s ridden the shares down from $40 to $25, with only their steady dividend stream for comfort.
As of Coleman’s final disclosure to the 44th parliament in April, he still held the shares. But yesterday his office told us he’d sold them.
Pity the man. He tees up a one-on-one investor day with the CEO, but has to flog his holding.
Coleman’s office wouldn’t tell us when the deal was done, only that the disclosure would be forthcoming after the 45th parliament gathers on August 30.
Coleman was faithful with his equity, only investing in NAB. But when it comes to banking, the former Nine exec runs a broad church.
Prior to politics, Coleman was director of strategy and digital at Nine under David Gyngell, and by virtue of that role was a director of Paddington road warrior Mark Bouris’s Yellow Brick Road, in which Nine had a stake.
These days his mortgage is with Dutch giant ING Direct, with which he also has a savings account.
Coleman also maintains a cash management trust with Nicholas Moore’s Macquarie, and savings accounts with Shayne Elliott’s ANZ and St George, an arm of Brian Hartzer’s Westpac.
The only one missing is Ian Narev’s CBA. We’ll watch their body language for hints when Narev appears in the green house for his debut rate confession.
Yetton fast mover
With a bevy of Seven executives on its board — Tim Worner here, Bruce McWilliam there — it’s no wonder Jason Yetton’s online lender SocietyOne has been getting into the Olympic spirit this week. Yetton and the troops have been holding their own games during lunch time in Sydney’s Botanic Gardens, not far from their Pitt Street headquarters.
And like an Aussie Usain Bolt, Yetton — until a career switch earlier in the year, a long time senior banker at Westpac — has propelled himself into the 100 metre sprint.
The CEO made it through to the final where he posted a creditable PB of 13.7 seconds.
Here he is pictured on the right, being beaten by Scott Nicholls, a member of the SocOne credit team who is clearly untroubled by “career limiting success”.
Perhaps even braver — and undoubtedly even faster — was Colin Cresswell, a member of the SocOne tech team, who beat Yetton and everyone else in the final. The boss didn’t place.
Rinehart in Rio
She is a major financial backer of our rowers. She is — along with the Governor-General himself — the patron of Volleyball Australia. She is such a great backer of our swimmers that her iron ore company Hancock Prospecting has the naming rights for the Australian championships.
So of course Gina Rinehart, Australia’s richest woman with a fortune last valued at $6bn, is along at the Rio Olympics. And, by all accounts, she’s having a ball. Rinehart spent the first day at the rowing. Day two was spent overseeing the beach volleyball. Sports Minister Sussan Ley was also along, watching with Britain’s Sports Minister Tracey Crouch and the GG, Peter Cosgrove.
And, as for all good Australians, the pool beckons to cheer on John Bertrand’s swimmers. Wait and see if, while poolside, she bumps into fellow billionaire James Packer. He’s expected in Rio any moment.
Tack, Mariah
Speaking of Crown Resorts’ James Packer, hemay be Rio-bound but his fantasy fiancee Mariah Carey still has her heart in the French Riviera, where the couple have spent the European summer. Mariah has just bedazzled her lambs with a tour via Entertainment Tonight — not traditionally the media of choice for Australia’s rich, private families — of the super yacht Capri that she has chartered to trip about alongside Packer’s Arctic P.
The yacht appears to be owned by British billionaire John Caudwell, the founder of British mobile phones retailer Phones4U. Wearing not much more than a bedazzled bikini top, Mariah told ET’s perky reporter her summer vessel cost $US340,000 a week.
But, really, having “his and hers yachts” is priceless. While Mariah has to give hers back, Packer, of course, gets to keep what was his late father Kerry Packer’s ice breaker, which as Carey explained these days comes with a mega blow-up slide.
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