Scott Farquhar and Cranbrook dissidents shown door; Can the last Star exec turn out the lights?
As far as board upheaval goes, Mike Cannon-Brookes has set a benchmark for his slick campaign against AGL, seeing off its chair, its chief executive and several board members following a stealthy raid for greater control of the energy company.
By contrast, his Atlassian co-founder Scott Farquhar is fumbling in the takeover space, having been outmanoeuvred in a bid to refresh the board of Sydney private school Cranbrook at its annual general meeting on Tuesday night.
Farquhar is not alone in these ambitions; he is one of several extraordinarily wealthy parents agitating to transform the boys-only school into a mixed-sex campus by 2023.
But he was the only recipient of some serious shade that was cast once the vote had been counted, ending in school president Jon North being returned by an overwhelming majority.
It was North, formerly of Gresham Partners, who for months had been staring down a shadow movement to oust him as school president once three seats – including his own – came up for re-election.
Voting sentiment ultimately came down in favour of North and serving councillors Craig Carroll and Michael Jensen, in what some attendees described as a quasi-referendum on the question of admitting girls to the school.
The ballot was attended by about 130 parents while another 380-odd votes were filed by proxy – about 80 per cent of parents supported no change to the council’s make-up.
Sighted at the far back of the room were Farquhar and another advocate of board renewal, Caledonia co-CIO Will Vicars, neither of whom spoke during the meeting, with the Atlassian co-founder apparently making a vector for the exits once the outcome became clear.
But the matter did not end there.
Having triumphed, North spoke of the recent quarrelling over co-education, the divisions at play, and hinted at the skulduggery of those seeking his departure.
“Cranbrook is not AGL,” he said, in a zinger clearly intended for one person in the audience – and by then Farquhar had probably gone.
North declined to answer questions and Farquhar’s spokeswoman said: “We won’t be commenting on this one.”
Parents who did speak in favour of the board’s renewal included Macquarie Group director Nicola Wakefield-Evans and McKinsey managing director Angus Dawson, although, oddly, neither had a candidate ready for the available seats.
Both have been working alongside Farquhar, Vicars and Walter Lewin, chair of venture capital firm OneVentures, to support an expedited introduction of female students. For now the plan remains on the table and in its consultation phase.
Those who spoke against the proposal included former Labor minister Graham Richardson, who said he probably wouldn’t have enrolled his son at the school if he had known of the transformation in advance.
–
Rich-listers’ big bash
Melbourne’s glitterati should dress for Arctic conditions on Thursday night when they join Alex Waislitz in industrial Port Melbourne, with the billionaire unprepared to let the east coast cold snap interfere with his party plans.
The businessman’s Waislitz Foundation has joined forces with the newly-formed foundation of the local operations of Canaccord Genuity, run by Marcus Freeman, to raise what is expected to be more than $600,000 for Save a Child’s Heart, an Israeli-based international non-profit organisation which provides lifesaving cardiac heart surgery for children from countries without access to critical cardiac care.
For the privilege of joining Waislitz and Freeman at their “valentine’s gala” at The Timber Yard in Port Melbourne, essentially an industrial shed used as an event space, party goers have forked out $18,000 for a table, with the bash now sold out.
Not a bad feat amid Melbourne’s deep winter.
Set to be there are Arnold Bloch Leibler’s Jeremy Leibler, Bell Potter director Hugh Robertson, Credit Clear founding director Lewis Romano, who is the entrepreneurial son of Melbourne PR supremo Judy Romano, Mesoblast’s Dr Silviu Itescu and investment banker turned pub baron Jon Adgemis.
Adgemis will be flying the flag on the night for his JAGA Group, which is being run by Crown escapee Peter Crinis towards what investors hope will be a successful float of the pub roll-up this year.
Alongside billionaire investor Waislitz on the board of his foundation sit two of his children Jacob Waislitz, 24, and Amelia Waislitz, 21. Their mum is Heloise Pratt, the daughter of late cardboard box king Richard Pratt.
Thorney Investments chair Waislitz is now engaged to former KPMG business adviser Rebekah Behbahani, with whom he shares a daughter, Storm.
–
Hogg gets the bacon
It’s getting to be a case of will the last executive standing at casino operator Star Entertainment please turn out the lights.
The once again vacated job of running the troubled company is now to be filled on an interim basis by the group’s Queensland chief Geoff Hogg, whose pay to take the reins left hanging by Matt Bekier and then John O’Neill was revealed on Wednesday.
Hogg’s remuneration is way down on what former chair O’Neill was afforded just a few weeks earlier by the Star board to take on the CEO gig until a permanent replacement could be found.
For his trouble, O’Neill was to get another $1.5m-a-year to act as boss, on top of his $500,000 pay as chair, with none of that money at risk via being tied to performance hurdles.
Not so for Hogg however, who is expected to return to his less powerful day job running Star’s Queensland operations once they find someone to run the show permanently – an even tougher clean up task now that the Bell inquiry into the Star has heard a recommendation that the casino is unfit to hold a licence.
Maybe Steve McCann, the Crown CEO who knows exactly what the clean up job requires, can do it all over again once private equity giant Blackstone takes over Crown Resorts.
But back to placeholder Hogg, who’s getting the equivalent of $1m-a-year fixed pay to be acting chief executive compared with $651,131 as Queensland boss.
He’s also got the potential to earn a short-term and a long-term maximum incentive of $600,000 each, with his performance criteria for these relating to his old Queensland job.
Last year Hogg only got his base pay, with things also looking pretty grim for the next little while at the group as regulatory authorities take their pound of flesh.
To Hogg we say, good luck.
Lambie lambastes Canberra’s Qantas gravy train
Tassie Senator Jacqui Lambie has revealed figures that show Canberra’s Qantas bias is more than mere rumour and the flying kangaroo’s Chairman’s Lounge is a particular favourite.
ERA mining PM’s speeches for Jabiluka trouble
Cancelling the mining licence for ERA’s Jabiluka uranium mine should have been an easy win for Anthony Albanese’s government. But it might be shaping up as an own goal.