Shane and Shayne aren’t the same at ANZ

Illustration: Peter Nicholson.

It sounds harsh — but ANZ’s deputy chief financial officer Shane Buggle only has himself to blame.

The obstinate fool refused to follow his CEO Shayne Elliott’s example and adopt the Dockland appropriate spelling of his name: S-H-A-Y-N-E.

As ANZ’s newly appointed head of markets Shayne Collins demonstrated last week, good things come to those bankers who are flexyble. Clearly Buggle wasn’t.

ANZ’s new chief financial officer will instead be Greenhill Australia co-head Michelle Jablko — or should that now be Mychelle Jablko?

“My name remains the same,” the Melbourne-based former UBS investment banker told us.

Getting the boot-tique

This column kept a close eye on the visit Down Under of Greenhill’s international boss Scott Bok a fortnight ago.

There were two main talking points for the trip.

Firstly, what design would Greenhill managing director Peter Wilson select for the mosaic jacuzzi on the roof of his $5 million Woolloomooloo conversion?

And secondly, what is the future of the now even more boutique adviser’s Melbourne office?

Bok scotched chatter of toe-cutting.

“We are 110 per cent committed to this market,” the visiting American said, using a favourite expression of innumerate sports commentators.

After the departure of their most senior staff member, Simon McConnell, and the 10 other staff in the Greenhill Melbourne bunker will hope that commitment remains.

Michelle Jablko was well regarded by Greenhill’s ping pong- playing staff, even if she was the shop’s principal adviser on Slater & Gordon’s disastrous $1.3 billion acquisition of Quindell — a transaction that, for whatever reason, didn’t make it on the appointment notice put out by ANZ.

Greenhill will now have a sole Australian head, Roger Feletto, who, as it happens, is the proud new owner of a Mercedes AMG.

Foreign affairs

Australia’s richest QC, Allan Myers, had a long way to travel last night.

Just yesterday morning, he was pounding the bar table under the flickering lights of Melbourne’s Old High Court building on behalf of Pankaj and Radhika Oswal, who are a week away from going to trial with Shayne Elliott’s ANZ and others in a billion-dollar lawsuit over the collapse of the couple’s fertiliser business.

But today he would want to be in Geneva for the AGM of Norinvest, the Swiss bank of which he is a major shareholder.

Myers is up for re-election as a director, a gig attracting an annual stipend of 150,000 Swiss francs ($209,500) — perhaps not a lot for man worth close to $700 million. But every centime counts.

Norinvest, which owns Banque Cramer, made 20 million francs last year.

However, the big play among Myer’s Euro interests is Polish brewery Grupa Zywiec.

It declared a profit for the quarter last month of about $15 million, which compared to a small loss at the same time last year.

London to a Brick

After a token XXXX over lunch (which, to go by the reaction of our waitress, no one has ordered at the Eagle Street pier since Joh Bjelke-Petersen ruled the state), this column temporarily set up Margin Call HQ in the cafe in the foyer of Waterfront Place.

That’s Dexus boss Darren Steinberg’s trophy Brisbane tower, in which the commonwealth government has its offices.

No luck bumping into ministers Brandis or Dutton.

But we did catch independent senator Glenn Lazarus making his way into the lifts. What did he think of his former political leader Clive Palmer’s announcement that he was retiring from politics?

“Is that right?” said the Brick at the news, a smile joining his eyes. Then the scepticism well known to those who have worked closely with Palmer set in. “We’ll wait and see,” the Brick added, cautiously.

Newman old news

Even more than usual, Moreton is a seat to watch on election night.

The federal seat in the south of Brisbane is held by Labor’s Graham Perrett on a margin of 1.6 per cent.

This year Perrett — who is best known to many for his exciting fiction — is being challenged by Nic Monsour.

And Monsour has a secret weapon: his brother-in-law, former Queensland premier Campbell Newman.

If you can believe it, Monsour — whose CV spans the army reserves, insurer Suncorp and most recently his own small business Monster Services — has not made great use of Newman. Go figure.

The former premier has been to two of his brother-in-law’s campaign functions, as well as his official launch, at which ceremonial duties were performed not by Newman but by the LNP’s federal leader, George Brandis.

And, so far, Newman hasn’t been out on the streets campaigning.

Monsour told us he wants that to change on July 2.

“I hope he’s out there on election day handing out how-to-vote cards.”

So does Perrett. “The beauty of Campbell is that he annoyed so many people,” he told us.

Newman, meanwhile, told us he is keeping busy with his business interests, particularly the robotic agricultural firm he chairs, SwarmFarm Robotics.

Newman also told us the subcontracting work he did for Queensland-based richie Maha Sinnathamby is done. His six-month contract working on the “Idea precinct” for Sinnathamby’s enormous Springfield project finished in January. Now what?

On enemy territory

Good to see accidental billionaire Mike Cannon-Brookes in Sydney inner city enclave Eveleigh over the weekend. The co-founder of software developer Atlassian was shopping at the weekly farmers market held at the Sam Mostyn-chaired Carriageworks, which sits just over the rail tracks from Australian Technology Park — the site Cannon-Brookes and his billionaire co-founder Scott Farquhar had wanted to turn into a tech hub.

The Atlassian bid lost late last year to a Mirvac-led consortium. Instead of an IT utopia, Australian Technology Park will in coming years be the new workplace for more than 10,000 of Ian Narev’s Commonwealth Bank of Australia staff. There goes the neighbourhood.

Still, it’s good to see Cannon-Brookes is able to venture so near his recent disappointment.

The long-haired and bearded co-CEO of the now Nasdaq-listed tech firm was in his trademark Silicon Valley hobo ensemble: plain white T-shirt and baseball cap.

He was accompanied by his wife Annie, their three children and an oversize pram.

No sign of his $120,000 Tesla electric car — his preferred mode of transport when he leaves his $12 million Centennial Park mansion.

Also no sign among the heirloom carrots of Narev, the man who spoiled Eveleigh’s tech nirvana.