Sly old Fox and his lazy sea-dogs
The nation’s richest ageing flesh is — as you read this — decked out in bespoke linen and Camilla caftans: the floating festival of Lindsay Fox has begun.
On Saturday the LinFox billionaire’s “Love Boat” (actually a cruise ship hired from the US-owned Seabourn fleet) set off from Athens.
The first stop was Monemvasia, a town on a small island off the east coast of the Peloponnese: a lovely spot to admire the olive groves, contemplate the origins of Western Civilisation — and then return, champagne glass in hand, to the ship’s mighty jacuzzi.
Yesterday brought Lindsay and wife Paula’s guests to Katakolo, a seaside town overlooking the Ionian Sea, and an easy trek — even for a septuagenarian billionaire — to Olympia, home of the ancient Games.
The first Olympics — which took place in the 8th century BC — were in honour of Zeus, king of the gods. What passed for athletics at the site yesterday was all for Fox, king of Australian logistics.
Fittingly, the entourage — which includes golfing great Greg Norman — is not without sporting prowess.
Also among the more than 200 guests are Lindsay’s billionaire bestie Solomon Lew and his newish squeeze Roza, iron ore billionaire Andrew Forrest, pastoralist Harold Mitchell and the man Lindsay mooned on national television, Molly Meldrum.
The Hellenic gathering is to mark the romantic moment 79 years and three months ago that led to Lindsay’s conception. He turns 80 on April 19, 2017.
Drop in the ocean
And how about the “Love Boat” itself?
Conception boy Lindsay Fox has hired a 198m vessel, which has 225 luxury suites.
Built by Italians, the Love Boat has the highest space-per-guest ratio in the cruise boat industry.
Even for billionaire boating, this is impressive.
Almost all have private verandas. Some — including Solly Lew’s penthouse — are 1200 square feet (110sq m) large.
The best suites include a private glassed-in Solarium, a soaking tub and a lounging bed.
The public spaces aren’t bad, either. There’s lots of on-board options for Lindsay’s guests to pass the time.
You might find Eddie McGuire playing Blackjack in the onboard casino, Lew’s ex-wife Rosie being pampered in the health spa or fruit don Frank Costa doing pilates in the gym.
And at night, guests — hundreds of them — can come together in the “Grand Salon”.
Monday night’s schedule included “piano night”. It hadn’t begun by the time we went to press.
But we have a hunch that Billy Joel — who we’ve heard is being paid about $1 million to perform — might be in and out of the Love Boat well before it moors in Dubrovnik.
Singapore swings
The elongated election has been terrible for Australian attendance at international events less alluring than Lindsay Fox’s Mediterranean voyage.
The latest victim is the World Cities Summit, which is currently being held in Lee Hsien Loong’s Singapore.
The summit is replete with Turnbull buzzwords — innovation, smart cities, the power of data. But, regrettably, it is without a Turnbull.
Greater Sydney Commission chief Lucy Turnbull quietly withdrew last week as first lady duties called — offering counsel to the PM, wearing matching blue puffy jackets, that sort of thing.
Which isn’t to say Singapore’s gaudy Marina Bay Sands was without notable attendees. Among them are Royal Dutch Shell chairman Charles Holliday, Nestle chairman Peter Brabeck-Letmathe, Rockefeller Foundation president Judith Rodin and former South Korean prime minister Han Seung-soo.
Dialogue deprivation
Phil Scanlan’s annual gabfest — the Australian American Leadership Dialogue — which kicks off tonight in Washington DC, has also been savaged by the federation’s political uncertainty.
Now that Bill Shorten has conceded, some of his Labor troops may join confirmed attendee Stephen Conroy and the AALD co-chair Kim Beazley.
The event has struggled to attract senior Coalition attendees in recent years. It looks like it will struggle again as the best and brightest in team blue position themselves for a visit to Peter Cosgrove’s residence inYarralumla.
Still, as we wrote last week, at least Scanlan has confirmed the attendance of Stuart Robert, the former minister with a penchant for travel, who resigned in February.
Grech wreck
Slater & Gordon managing director Andrew Grech has had a miserable time of things, whether measured by the listed law firm’s performance in the year to date (down 52 per cent), or its performance over the past 12 months (down 88 per cent) or the hit to Grech’s credibility (priceless).
A little over a year ago Slaters had a share price approaching $8. It closed yesterday at 40c.
Grech’s property portfolio has shadowed the law firm’s fall.
Last year Grech lived in a mansion in Kew, one of Melbourne’s more prestigious suburbs, which his agent rightly described as a “Masterpiece of Victorian Grandeur”. A Chinese buyer Yihua Shen — of the Shenzhen-listed China Shipping Network Technology — bought it for $11.2m. In an apt symbol of Grech’s straitened life after the $1.3 billion Quindell implosion, our property records now show the law boss is living in an apartment on Queen Street in the Melbourne CBD. And he’s renting.
Chips are down
Staying with poorly performing ASX-listed stocks, the exotic gaming group Donaco has had a shocking 2016.
The brains behind the outfit are Joey and Benjamin Lim, grandsons of the late Malaysian billionaire Lim Goh Tong, who founded the Genting casino empire.
Donaco operates casinos in Southeast Asia: one in Vietnam, just over the border with China, and Cambodia, just over the Thai border.
Donaco’s stock is down almost 50 per cent in the year to date — a terrible performance compared to its ASX gaming peers.
For example, James Packer’s $9bn ASX-listed Crown — from which Donaco appears to have borrowed its logo — has been treading water in the year to date, nudging down 1.3 per cent.
Meanwhile, Matt Bekier’s Star Entertainment group is up almost 10 per cent to $4.6bn.
In happier Australian news for the Lim dynasty, Genting — which is chaired by Joey and Benjamin’s billionaire uncle KT Lim — owns almost 10 per cent of Bekier’s thriving empire.
And the Malaysian gaming giant has an option to further grow its stake in Star after it received approval in September from NSW’s Independent Liquor and Gaming Authority.
That approval came after a 1165-day wait, so it’s no surprise the Malaysians haven’t responded in a hurry.
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