Sophie Mirabella may be oar-struck from Gina Rinehart role
What does the future hold for former Liberal pollie-turned corporate mouthpiece Sophie Mirabella?
The former Member for Indi, who lost her Victorian federal seat in 2013 to Cathy McGowan, has been working for Gina Rinehart for more than three years as the mining billionaire’s head spin doctor and lobbyist.
But Margin Call has learned that Rinehart has lured some fresh executive talent to her ranks in the form of Rowing Australia’s Katherine Savage.
Melbourne-based Savage is believed to have started with Rinehart’s empire on Wednesday as “principal external affairs — Roy Hill, Atlas Iron, S Kidman & Co and Hancock Prospecting”, which sounds a tweak away from Mirabella’s “general manager of media and government relations”.
Savage will remain in Melbourne to fulfil the new role, with Mirabella based there, too. Rinehart and her empire are Perth-based.
Rinehart, a key sponsor of several Australian Olympic sports and notorious for her hands-on style of management, met Savage via her financial support for rowing, with Savage chief commercial officer at Rowing Australia.
The poaching will be a frustrating loss for Rowing Australia chair and Wesfarmers boss Rob Scott, himself a former Olympic rower, in the lead-up to the Tokyo Olympics in July.
Neither Mirabella nor Savage responded to Margin Call’s efforts to discuss their respective roles.
We’ll endeavour to keep you posted.
Masks all around
You couldn’t blame bank boss Peter King and his Westpac execs for taking a conservative approach to the coronavirus. Risk aversion, beyond even that being rolled out by Scott Morrison’s federal government, is the order of the day.
Westpac execs who travelled to mainland China on bank business or on holidays in recent weeks are staying at home, away from the office.
Longstanding Westpac spinner David Lording spent much of the Oz summer in the Middle Kingdom, including some time in Hubei province, of which Wuhan is the capital, before cutting his family trip short as the Asian giant went into lockdown.
Lordo managed to get out, returning to Sydney via Hong Kong on Monday, temperature-tested all the way.
He is now in lockdown at home, with Margin Call pleased to report no sign of sniffles, although the really hazardous material being handled by the media pro is yet to dissipate as the bank continues to deal with the Austrac allegations and banking royal commission fallout.
Magpies’ car switch
The Collingwood AFL players might be soon be handing back their Holden SUVs. Not because they’ve been caught by the constabulary, but the Pies partnership scouts are quietly eliciting a new car sponsorship.
The Holden Centre naming rights are up for grabs.
Eddie McGuire’s outfit moved in to the Olympic Swimming Stadium precinct in 2004 as the Lexus Centre until 2010, before Westpac got the rights.
Holden, which took a three-year deal from the 2016 season, is seemingly on an extension with the deal more contra than cash these days.
Holden, of course, has shut down local manufacturing, and sells fewer cars every year. Last year it was down to 43,000, the lowest tally since 1954. January saw just 2641 sales.
It might be time the Pies go upmarket, with Volvo or Alfa Romeo? Jaguar, Jeep, Hyundai and Nissan are probably ruled out given they already sponsor clubs in Melbourne. Sponsorships can be shared state to state, with Hyundai doubling up at Brisbane as well as Carlton. Kia sponsors GWS, with Sydney Swans wearing the Volkswagen badge. Club members typically get a discount on any new car purchase. A Holden spokesman said they had no comment on the future of the arrangement, “the details of which are commercial-in-confidence”.
Reigning premiers Richmond, who are sponsored by Jeep, get about $1.5m each year from their sponsorship, with $300,000 extra for reaching the grand final, due to the added exposure. That doesn’t include naming rights.
One wag suggested the Magpies HQ could assume its unkind nickname, the Remand Centre.
CSG inks sale deal
Funds manager Will Vicars can now go paperless.
His contrarian days of owning a big stake in CSG, the desktop printer company, is running out on ink.
The ASX-listed firm has agreed to its $140m sale to Japanese tech giant Fuji Xerox. Of the 250 shareholders, an unhappy 99 per cent agreed to the deal this week.
The last annual report issued by Mark Bayliss, its CEO after Julie-Ann Kerin stepped down last year, was 116 pages long, not that any CSG shareholders would ever confess to printing it out.
The Vicars-led Caledonia Private Investments holds a 29 per cent interest. Caledonia will take about $40m in the sale, substantially less than it has put in over the past decade.
It had shown early support for the sale, as no superior proposal emerged for the company whose share price peaked at $1.98 in 2010.
Caledonia topped up its holding at $1.40, then at $1.05.
Since 2018, Forager Funds has ranked as second-biggest shareholder.
The board advised acceptance of the 31c as it represented a premium to the trading before the October 24 offer at 23c.
Its pre-offer low was 13c.
Chairman Bernie Campbell foresaw that the price may fall with no other offer.
CSG, founded in 1988 in Darwin, decided in 2012 to restructure, selling off digital divisions to focus on its IT printer business.
Meanwhile on Wednesday, a batch of CSG shares Bayliss was entitled to under an incentive plan was transferred to the boss.
The five million ordinary shares were worth $1.55m. He now owns 10 million shares.
Bayliss will be staying on. His longest job was CFO at John Fairfax for almost five years from the late 1990s, with stints in the meantime at Anchorage Capital and Grays eCommerce.
On Wednesday morning the Supreme Court made orders approving the deal.
Beddison farewell
The southern capital’s captains of industry and powerbrokers on Tuesday farewelled businessman and philanthropist Tony Beddison, who passed away in mid-January.
Trucking billionaire Lindsay Fox, former Victorian premier Ted Baillieu, and 3AW broadcaster Neil Mitchell were among those who gathered with the family of the former Royal Children’s Hospital chairman at St John’s Anglican Church in Toorak to pay tribute to the Beddison Group principal. Beddison had built his recruitment firm into a national giant.
A dedicated racing man, Beddison was a former director of the Moonee Valley Racing Club and a director of the Murdoch Children’s Research Institute.
Baillieu spoke at the church ceremony, which businessman and former president of the Victorian Liberal Party Michael Kroger also attended before moving onto the wake held at the Beddison family’s Toorak home.
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