Speak your mind, pay the price at ANZ

Illustration: Peter Nicholson.

Turns out we completely misread ANZ boss Shayne Elliott. We had him down as a mild mannered sort of fellow.

Were we ever wrong. This assassin would spook the hardened warlords of Waziristan — just look at the corpse bag behind Bell Potter’s offices.

Yes, mess with Shayne’s ANZ at your peril, as Bell Potter’s former managing director of institutional equities Angus Aitken might tell you.

Aitken parted ways with Colin Bell’s brokerage yesterday morning, days after he published a critical note to clients about ANZ’s incoming chief fin­ancial officer Michelle Jablko.

As we published on Wednesday, Aitken’s thesis was that “former investment bankers tend to be crap at most things in the listed world”.

And as we published yesterday, that was parried by ANZ’s corporate communications boss Paul Edwards, who asked in a tweet if Aitken’s note was sexist. That angle was lost on us. We wouldn’t be surprised if it was lost on Michelle, too. She’s no pushover and far from thin skinned.

Nonetheless, by yesterday morning Aitken was no longer at Bell Potter. What to make of all this?

It looks to us like someone lost their job for using plain ­English to speak their mind.

By all means, disagree with Aitken — but force him out? That seems a massive over­reaction.

More proof perhaps of what we used to say at MichaelStutchbury’s shop: “The World is Fukt”.

Cleaning up at Spotless

Please don’t call us sexist, but there seems to be something interesting going on at the Margaret Jackson-chaired Spotless.

Stock in the listed cleaning and catering company closed down almost 10 per cent yesterday. Almost three million shares traded hands for $1.09 just after the market closed.

There were no announcements on the ASX. We’d ask if someone knows something we don’t about Spotless’s June half cash flow — if only we weren’t so scared about what ANZ gender policeman Paul Edwards might tweet. Can’t be too careful these days.

Lefty right for the job

In February, with the federal election looming, Pauline Vamos resigned from her $480,000-odd-a-year gig running the Michael Easson-chaired Association of Superannuation Funds of Australia.

Three months on — with the federal election grinding on — we hear the search by executive recruiter Heidrick & Struggles to replace her at the nation’s peak superannuation lobby group is getting to the pointy end.

Easson is the former head of the Labor Council of NSW. Some see that pedigree in his chairmanship of the association. And if our intel is correct, the two likely Vamos replacements won’t change their minds. It looks like this contest is red on red.

One is David Gallagher, an academic who runs the Centre for International Finance and Regulation. His centre is a mainly federally funded outfit that was set up by Kevin Rudd’s first government.

The Coalition has since put it on the endangered species list. The centre is expected to close by the end of the year. For his sake, here’s hoping Gallagher interviewed well.

The other mooted candidate is Fiona Reynolds, who runs Britain’s Principles for Responsible Investment, which is supported by Rudd’s latest pursuit, the United Nations.

Reynolds — who previously ran the Australian Institute of Superannuation Trustees — was in Australia in recent weeks. And if she slipped in an interview while wearing her Principles for Responsible Investment hat, so what? Sometimes you have to invest in yourself. Responsibly, of course.

Insiders on the outer

The steak was wonderful, but sadly there was no sign of Riverview mullet pioneerOliver Curtis or the successful business woman he is married to, Roxy Jackenco, in the lunch crowd at Fix St James.

 

 

The pair must have broken bread somewhere else during yesterday’s lunch hour of Curtis’s insider trading trial at the historic Sydney courthouse over the road.

Legal affairs at the restaurant were instead represented by thwarted Liberal Party fundraiserDyson Heydon (even more ghostly in person than in print), who was with his old friend Leigh Aitken (not sure if he’s related to ANZ’s latest scalp).

Also in the house, former Fairfax Media royalty Derry Hogue and Marguerite Winter, who were visiting from the Hunter Valley.

Hooray for Harry

After lunch we perched ourselves in a cafe on the fragrant end of Sydney’s Kent Street, underneath the headquarters of Harry Triguboff’s Meriton apartment empire.

We were there for two reasons: firstly to congratulate him on being crowned Australia’s richest person with a fortune of $10.6 billion (take that third place Frank Lowy!).

And secondly to check on the 83-year-old’s health. As we mentioned yesterday, Triguboff’s BRW triumph has been soured a bit by a nasty injury.

Meriton’s official channels, such as they are, remained quiet on the subject.

But we gather the octogenarian has busted a foot after a fall. Terrible news.

Unfortunately, there was no sign of Triguboff during our afternoon visit to Meriton HQ. But our spies report he was getting around, sans tuxedo, on a walking stick.

Mend up and congratulations.

Another doctor Pratt

Staying within the orbit of our wealthiest Australians, and it seems congratulations are also due to Pratt family matriarch Jeanne Pratt, who was yesterday awarded an Honorary Doctor of Laws degree by Melbourne’s Monash University.

As a Monash honorary doctor she joins her late husband Dr Richard Pratt and only son Dr Anthony Pratt (whose fortune has just been valued at $10.4bn by BRW, placing the cardboard king just behind “High Rise” Harry).

On the same afternoon Jeanne — who is something of an online Scrabble addict — also donated a cool million bucks to the University’s Centre for Theatre and Performance.

As newly minted BRW billionaire daughter and son-in-law Fiona and Ruffy Geminder and a few of her grandchildren looked on, Jeanne spoke of how she was anything but ‘’humbled’’ by the award.

‘‘Well, sorry, I’m having fun. And I’m not humble at all,’’ she cried from the stage. “For one thing, I’m reminded of what Israel’s Prime Minister Golda Meir once told General Moshe Dayan: ‘Moshe, don’t be so humble. You’re not that great!’ ”

Jeanne’s honorary doctorate from Monash follows one awarded by University of Western Australia to Dr Andrew Forrest and another by the University of South Australia to Dr Barry Humphries.

Good to see that trio now has more than just great hair in common.

Bottom of the pile

His descent down the BRW Rich List after the collapse of his Queensland Nickel refinery is more proof of what we all knew — this has been a shocking year for Clive Palmer.

But the good news for the departing MP is that his estranged Chinese business partners Citic — the ones he called “bastards” who “shoot their own people” on national television — have finally started commissioning the last two of six processing lines at the Sino Iron project in WA.

That will mean more output from the project and more royalties for Clive — although one of the two royalties is subject to an ugly legal dispute that shows no signs of being resolved any time soon.

The Sino Iron project, last estimated to have cost Citic around $12bn, has been a massive headache for its owners.

It is years behind schedule and billions over budget.

Citic’s experience with Clive couldn’t really be described as a positive cultural experience.

We do understand, however, that the last two processing lines have actually started commissioning ahead of schedule and under budget — not enough to recoup the billions of losses it has sustained on the project to date, but every little bit counts.