Suppliers and employees at David Collard’s Scale Facilitation still haven’t been paid for the month of June, and that’s after its officials gave an on-record assurance that all outstanding invoices and unpaid salaries would be settled “prior to the end of the financial year”. One hoped they meant the one that just ended.
Margin Call understands there are loads of staff in Australia and the US yet to receive a dime, and maybe that’s no surprise given that cashflow’s dried up at Scale; the company doesn’t generate revenue, and a recent police raid on its Geelong office stands only to imperil the bridging finance that Collard so badly needs to keep the lights on.
Contractors owed money as far back as March were waiting on the promised June 30 deadline to see a bit of payment flicked their way. One supplier standing by for a significant amount of cash sent a couple of associates to the Scale offices a few weeks ago to demand a please explain from the kid at the counter. That matter is still unresolved, we hear.
Frankly, it’s incredible there haven’t been more resignations from Scale and its subsidiaries. Margin Call has already reported on a wave of executive resignations over the past month, the latest being NYC-based Shankar Raman, the chief financial officer at Recharge Industries, a Scale group company.
Raman had only been at Recharge since January (his last day was on Friday), and his departure follows that of Scale’s general counsel, Lucas Kenny, who no longer lists his work at Scale on his LinkedIn profile, and managing director Joey Ballantyne.
We’re expecting more exits to follow, with most of the management in Australia effectively downing tools and waiting for their salaries to flow through before making a call. And this, Collard expects us to believe, is the company that stands to construct electric car battery plants on two continents.
Clock ticks for Ben
The deadline looms for Ben Roberts-Smith to file an appeal over the loss of his defamation action against Nine Entertainment, which ended with the catastrophic finding that he’s effectively a war criminal.
The notice of intention needs to be lodged with the Federal Court next week, and it’s our understanding that the appeal will almost certainly proceed, based on the whisper chain reaching us from Seven’s office.
In all likelihood it will be by Bret Walker, SC, one of the most talked about and pricey silks in the country. But Walker’s powers might be a little overstated these days. No? Even he couldn’t save former premier Gladys Berejiklian from the devastating corruption findings handed down by the Independent Commission Against Corruption a week ago.
We’re hearing that one’s going to be a bit harder to fight back against, now that Walker and a few others have had a chance to absorb its 700-odd pages.
Pushback on charges
Another one going down fighting is former Colliers International wunderkind Dan Walker, who’s pushing back against the fraud charges laid against him by police in May.
Margin Call broke the story that Walker, once a promising executive at the global real estate firm, had been taken down in a sting at Sydney’s Broadway Shopping Centre over allegations of “serious financial misconduct”, as Colliers’ CEO Malcolm Tyson described it in a memo to staff.
The 36 year old appeared before the beak at Manly Local Court on Thursday where he pleaded not guilty to two counts of dishonestly obtaining financial advantage by deception.
It was a brief mention by the sounds of it and Walker, currently on bail, isn’t required to show his face when the matter returns on August 10.
Apparently those two charges represent only some tens of thousands of dollars in allegedly misappropriated amounts, and it’s Margin Call’s understanding that further charges were being examined given that a Colliers audit calculated the firm’s losses at a far higher sum.
A little reminder that Walker’s, ah, difficulties were brought to the attention of his superiors about one year ago, while he was a director of leasing.
In the pipeline
Lark Distillery, famed for its whisky and, perhaps, for the ignominious departure of its very naughty CEO, appears to have branched out from its single malts.
Sponsored posts for the company are shilling a $50 “dad-style cap”, which carries the Lark logo, of course. As does the $50 Lark whisky sleeve, for the serious drinkers who see fit to carry a hippy.
Seems like it’s early days on the merchandise; only those options are available for the moment.
Margin Call can only wonder when Lark might release a range of pipes to go with its whisky, a bit like London luxury retailer Dunhill, which brought out a blended scotch into their brand portfolio during the 1970s. Dunhill, of course, is famed for its 100 years of pipe-making and “smoking instruments”.
Some may remember that Lark’s former CEO, Geoff Bainbridge, famously got himself into trouble for smoking a certain type of pipe, although that one looked far less like a billiard or a churchwarden of the kind manufactured by the great Alfred Dunhill. And we really doubt the company makes glass barbecues either.
Fundraiser signs off
ALP fundraiser Kate Dykes signed off on Friday evening as director of the Federal Labor Business Forum, saying she’s off to spend more time with family after a 12-year stint with the party’s national secretariat.
Dykes’ final email to stakeholders said she was proud of the forum’s substantial growth and the coin-collecting behemoth it had become over “good and challenging times”.
And those challenging times must have only continued once Labor took office and Anthony Albanese decided to become a gigantic wet blanket and scratch fundraising events inside Parliament House.
Champion of the battlers has his expenses queried
Allan Fels built a reputation for crusading on behalf of the little guy. So why is he in a stoush with NSW Treasury over his taxpayer-funded expenses?
Tink turns opaque on finance transparency
Kylea Tink’s passion for trying to extract and publish every last detail of campaign financing from rival political parties seems to run out of steam when it comes to her own donation receipts.