Snow job causes some angst at FTI; New trading firm’s email blunder
Who said times are tough? FTI Consulting is treating some 40 of its favourite national clients to a ski junket in New Zealand in the coming weeks. The four-day jolly was supposed to be kept hush-hush except we hear a couple of FTI noses were put out of joint once the jaunt received approval.
FTI’s senior managing director, Vaughan Strawbridge, will be one of several figures on the slopes and it sounds like John Park isn’t going to pass up an opportunity for the apres-ski, either.
Pacific National’s Paul Scurrah was sent an invitation but a scheduling clash means he won’t be able to make it.
Back in March it was Scurrah who engaged Strawbridge to rummage around Scott’s Refrigerated Logistics before it deliquesced into liquidation.
An FTI official played down the event as a bog-standard business development caper. They wouldn’t divulge the names of anyone else who made the guest list, and we can only assume the firm wanted to keep it quiet for any clients who didn’t make the cut. A simple way to solve that problem, folks: spend more money!
Base camp will be in Queenstown, with the actual skiing to take place on a mountain roughly a half-hour drive away. It sounds decadent, and we hear most expenses are covered, but guests have to pay for themselves to travel across the Tasman. Some champagne on arrival?
Taking stock
Stockbrokers Tony “Burglar” Davis and Mark Gray announced the formation of their Unified Capital Partners firm on Wednesday evening. That’s after walking away from Shaw and Partners this week with a team of eight traders to start their own cross-town brand of broking and wealth management (apparently with the full blessing of Shaw’s Earl Evans and the rest of the firm’s brass).
Among the departed was Davis’s son, Jarrod “Motormouth” Davis, and between the burglar and the motormouth the father-son duo appear to have amusingly flubbed UCP’s first email to prospective investors.
Talking up the outfit, the memo said UCP had already established premium office spaces on Collins St, Melbourne, and Castlereagh St, Sydney, with the ownership team to be supported by private wealth advisers Thomas Chapman and Tom Gulliver.
But it was an over-sauced line about their “distribution and research capability via Bell Potter and Citibank” that appears to have caused some alarm, because it wasn’t actually true.
We hear both firms blew up in spectacular fashion over the, ah, mistake.
“Please note that we inadvertently made an error in our email,” wrote Chapman and Gulliver on Thursday morning.
“We do not have access to any distribution and research capability via Bell Potter and Citi Bank.”
Fashion famine
Erica Berchtold is seemingly between jobs now following revelations on Thursday that she’ll no longer be appointed CEO of discount retailer Best & Less.
That gig’s going to Ray Itaoui, who’s snaffled up a controlling stake in the business with his billionaire ally, Brett Blundy. And there’s no chance of Berchtold going back to her old job heading fashion retailer The Iconic, either, because that gig’s already been filled by Jere Calmes.
He starts at The Iconic next month, and it would appear the company’s performance continued to sag during the 2022 calendar year, according to its most recent accounts. The company posted an $11m loss over the 12 months, a figure that steepened the $5m loss recorded the year prior.
Revenue was up from $620.2m to $717m, with the cost of sales and the price of shipping largely to blame for the lacklustre results.
Interesting, too, that the accounts were prepared as a going concern with no warnings on solvency, and yet the retailer’s European parent, Global Fashion Group, noted that it would financially back the Australian operation should it fall on hard times.
“The company has received a letter of unconditional financial support from Global Fashion Group,” the report said.
“The directors are of the view that Global Fashion Group SA has sufficient financial resources to provide the company with support for a period of twelve months from the date of approval of the financial report,” it states
Small comfort for Calmes. At least there’s a bank of mum and dad looking out from the old country.
New Inclusion chair
Former PwC chief Luke Sayers has appointed an independent chair to his and wife Cate’s charitable foundation, more than 10 years after starting the not-for-profit.
The couple’s Inclusion Foundation will now be chaired by Laura Green; she has a background in the disability sector and is taking over from Sayers, who chaired the foundation for three years and is currently in Europe celebrating his wife’s 50th birthday. They’ll stay on the board, we hear.
It comes as Sayers seeks to distance himself from the tax scandal at his old firm, PwC. That untidiness went down while he was at the helm. Looks like the Inclusion Foundation has also been restructured to become a limited guarantee Australian public company, but it’s maintaining its status as a not for profit. A spokesman said the change had been made because the group had outgrown its former structure.
Wesfarmers’ Catch killed off as boss swans in Switzerland
Rob Scott was conspicuous by his absence as yet another of Wesfarmers’ dud investments was put to the sword but why he was schmoozing at the Davos world forum is a head scratcher.
CBA floats sale of pub baron’s boat
Jon Adgemis probably has bigger things on his mind than the loss of his lifestyle trappings, but if you’re in the market for a luxury yacht then the Commonwealth Bank has a deal waiting for you.