Seven puts a new spin on results

Cartoon: Rod Clement.

Less than a week out from the release of his first-half results, still relatively new Seven West Media boss James Warburton has gone out and hired himself a spin doctor.

While billionaire media proprietor Kerry Stokes has spent the Aussie summer skiing the slopes of Beaver Creek, Warburton has been hunting down a new communications boss to run things following the exit of Stephen Browning last October in favour of a more explosive gig at Orica.

Margin Call hears that former NSW government spinner Julia Lefort has just been persuaded to sign on the dotted line at Seven to take on a role that was made notorious by the long-serving and inimitable Simon Francis.

Those were the days.

Lefort was most recently head of media and internal engagement at the Department of Premier and Cabinet.

TV, mags and newspapers, we suspect, will be way more fun.

Lucio’s on the menu

It’s not quite arrivederci yet.

After nearly four decades, Lucio’s restaurant in Paddington failed to reach the entree as it was pulled from Wednesday’s auction.

Negotiations for the Windsor Street building housing the famous Italian restaurant are now continuing with a mysterious buyer who had lodged a pre-auction bid.

The meals — included their famed black Angus steak — will continue to be served by the vendor, Lucio Galletto, for a little while yet.

It was offered with a lease back for at least a year at $120,000 per annum, with options for an extension.

Galletto first signed the first lease some 37 years ago.

High-profile Ray White TRG agents Gavin Rubinstein and Oliver Lavers had a $3.5m guide. Rubinstein called it “a slice of history.”

Galletto first opened Lucios Italian Restaurant in Balmain in 1981 but moved it to Paddington two years later.

It wasn’t until 2007 that Galletto and wife Sally bought the freehold of the Federation building from their landlords for $2.7m.

The Australian art adorning the walls rivals many art galleries. The building once housed the Hungry Horse Art Gallery and Restaurant.

Often Lucio’s artist diners sketched something during their meals, and it went on the wall.

The collection began by chance when Sidney Nolan was dining and sketched an image of Ned Kelly on a table docket which Galletto framed.

The most expensive piece still hung is probably a Tim Storrier fire rope painting.

There are a couple of notable John Olsen plates on the wall.

Lucio’s operates as a family business, with son Matteo the sommelier, daughter Michela front of house and Sally managing the phones, email and website.

Last month Margin Call spotted retired estate agent Bill Bridges lunching with local solicitor Nick Eddy, with John Newtown, part-owner of Hall of Fame racehorse Super Impose, at the next table.

Around the corner from Lucio’s there’s still no replacement for French restaurant Guillaume B at the old Darcy’s.

The premises have been empty for over two years.

Child’s play

Here’s some late mail that must have got lost in the Christmas rush at Christine Holgate’s Australia Post.

Margin Call understands chief postie Holgate decided
the festive season was about
the right time to make the
latest changes to her senior management team at the government-owned enterprise.

Holgate, who’s counting down to the end of her own three-year term in October, said goodbye to Post’s first female company secretary Erin Kelly, not long after she’d returned from maternity leave.

Kelly, known to her colleagues as diligent and hardworking, was a long-time head of board and shareholder liaison at Aussie Post prior to being promoted to company secretary in 2016.

So she’d been around a while facilitating the relationship between now former Post chair John Stanhope and the group’s government owners, represented by former communications minister Mitch Fifield and then Paul Fletcher.

Kelly had even featured on the cover of this publication’s The Deal magazine in October 2018, alongside Holgate and her wider female executive team.

In that article, Holgate said if women were deciding to have children they were often stepping back from pushing for promotion.

“We need to think broader as leaders and think about how we support them through that period of time,” Holgate told the mag.

“This can help so that when the employee returns she doesn’t feel she doesn’t know what has happened in her absence.”

Kelly, who’s been replaced by general counsel Nick Macdonald (he filled in the gig for a short period in the first half of last year too), might be wondering what happened indeed.

Early warning

Swisse vitamins millionaire Radek Sali called in corporate undertakers to assess George Calombaris’s now failed hospitality empire four months ahead of its eventual multi-million-dollar collapse at the start of this week.

Margin Call has learned that KordaMentha was called in last October by now venture capitalist Sali, who has 46 per cent of the Calombaris-led Made Establishment, to assess the operations and prospects of at least part of the celebrity chef’s restaurant empire.

Following a lunchtime meeting of Made directors on Monday, KordaMentha was appointed as voluntary administrators of the group. Calombaris also controls about 46 per cent of the business, but is no longer a director.

The official appointment of administrators follows indications to KordaMentha’s Craig Shepard on February 4 that his services were likely
to be required in coming
days.

That was one day after Sali formally registered himself as a secured creditor of Made Establishment, alongside the company’s lender, the Commonwealth Bank, which is believed to be owed in the order of $10m.

It is understood CBA has no intention of calling a receiver in to the business to protect its interests at this stage.

Dial up

Left in a back of a cab?

Telstra on Wednesday night noted that a draft copy of the ripping speech that chief executive Andy Penn is due to give with Thursday morning’s profit result may have “lost confidentiality”. The telco giant said this was the result of “an administrative error”.

“We are not aware that the speech has been made public at this stage but we are making this disclosure out of an abundance of caution,” Telstra said just hours before the profit result is due to be released. That’s the second time this week of high jinks in accounting. Building giant James Hardie thought a “clerical error” may have seen some information from its results released early. James Hardie’s CEO Jack Truong rushed forward Wednesday’s scheduled release to Tuesday night.

New role

Stephen Johns is moving on from pallets to big property.

Johns will become the next chairman of Goodman Group, the global logistics and property outfit. The 73-year-old and soon to be retired Brambles chair will succeed Ian Ferrier in November.

Johns has prepared for the role following a long Lowy family apprenticeship, having been at Westfield for over 40 years, a director for 27, before stepping down in 2013 ahead of the Westfield split.

In 2016 Johns was appointed director at Goodman Group, which with a $27.9bn market cap is narrowing in on being Australia’s most valuable property company of all time, surpassing even Westfield which was taken over at $33bn. Coming in as the new Brambles chair will be John Mullen who needs a bit of light relief from his day job as Telstra chair.