Spiritual guidance little help for ex-Tabcorp CEO Adam Rytenskild

Former Tabcorp chief executive Adam Rytenskild. Picture: Luis Enrique Ascui

Former Tabcorp boss Adam Rytenskild was on the verge of being fired earlier this year when he did what many people would do in a time of crisis: he turned to his wife for assistance. And what did she do? She consulted with a spiritual healer.

This unlikely revelation emerged during a Fair Work Commission hearing on Wednesday during which Tabcorp’s legal team tried to counter a claim that the former CEO was denied procedural fairness while being informed of his imminent sacking on March 14.

In a case that hinges on whether Rytenskild was dismissed or whether he resigned of his own volition, lawyers for the betting company seized on communications between Rytenskild and his wife as a type of proof that he’d had ample time to consider a course of action, even though his wife struggled to find legal representation. Hence her conversation with “Richard”, whom Tabcorp’s lawyers, armed with subpoenaed WhatsApp messages, assumed was a solicitor. Rytenskild, to some giggles in the room, corrected them on that, informing everyone of Richard’s day-to-day trade in spiritual matters.

Officially, Rytenskild tendered his own resignation but he told the tribunal that he did so only after learning from Tabcorp chair Bruce Akhurst and directors David Gallop and Raelene Murphy that he would be dismissed by the board within a matter of hours. The news was dropped on him without warning, he told the tribunal, the directors accusing him of making a lewd remark that to this day he denies ever saying but which, they claim, was corroborated.

Rytenskild had requested a grace period until noon the following day to obtain legal advice, but Ahkurst replied at 3.04pm refusing it ahead of a board meeting at 4pm. The minutes of that meeting, obtained by Rytenskild’s lawyer Kim Anderson and presented to the tribunal, suggested the directors had already planned the CEO’s resignation.

“There is a palpable air of unreality to the suggestion that this was not a forced resignation,” Anderson told the hearing.

Tabcorp’s lawyer Vanja Bulut said Rytenskild was a senior executive and the time afforded to him was sufficient. Clearly not enough to get hold of any legal advice, although it sounds like the spiritual adviser was near enough at hand. What was imparted, however, remains just as mysterious as Richard himself, and FWC deputy president Gerard Boyce reserved his decision.

BYO plane

Times are obviously tough in the resources game. You’ve heard about the mine closures, the staff lay-offs, the scrapping of bonuses. At MinRes, the brass have jacked up the price of coffee and smoothies in the cafeteria. They’ve even ended the perk of free biscuits.

Austerity measures all around, clearly, and that’s why the industry collectively raised a brow this week at a rumour of mining contractor Develop Global (market cap: $520m) leasing a shiny new Pilatus PC-12 eight-seater turboprop. In this economy? Apparently so.

You might wonder if Develop’s Bill Beament signed off on a plane just to jet between his country estates, but it’s actually part of a growing backlash in the sector at Qantas and Virgin squeezing profits out of fly-in, fly-out mining contracts.

Develop managing director Bill Beament Picture: Bloomberg

Develop’s FIFO drillers usually work in small teams across two West Australian goldmines. Biggles Beament reckons it’s just cheaper and more efficient for his company to run its own flights instead of paying for seats on Qantas planes. Plus he can turn his teams around faster between shift changes. But there’s also possibly a hint that he’s just trying to keep up with the Joneses (and Ellisons), given that everyone seems to have their own private plane at the moment. Chris Ellison’s MinRes Air runs weekly Airbus A319 flights from Brisbane to the Pilbara, while privately owned Topdrill is leasing a Beechcraft Baron to fly its drillers and mechanics between jobs across the state.

Scyne of the times

Former Federal Court judge Andrew Greenwood was in the Financial Review on Wednesday arguing that Deloitte, EY and KPMG should all spin off their public sector work to separate entities, just as PwC did with Scyne a year ago.

“Consulting to public sector agencies should be entirely separated from consulting to the private sector,” Greenwood opined. Well, he would say that, wouldn’t he? Greenwood is a director at Scyne and the firm is suffering an obvious competitive disadvantage by consulting solely to the public sector. Its rivals don’t have that problem. He might have couched his argument in the fluty language of elevated ethics, but what Greenwood seems to be yearning for – whether he realises it or not – is a levelling of the playing field on how Scyne and its rivals make their money.

Allegro Funds, the owner of Scyne, couldn’t give a rats about ethics and principles; the only language it speaks with any fluency is that of profit.

Greenwood’s position shouldn’t surprise anyone. Governments are already rolling back their spending on consultants, and just last month Scyne announced cuts to 90 of its roles, including 10 belonging to managing directors.

And that’s to say nothing of the other glaring absurdity in Greenwood’s argument for a break-up of these consulting businesses. Is he assuming there’s a line-up of buyers eagerly wanting to snatch up tanking government consulting arms? Oh, and does there happen to be a firm already well-placed to accept more public sector work while all of this unwinding takes place?

That would be Scyne, of course, so forgive our egregious cynicism here.

Too-hard basket

And last, you really have to wonder if white-collar crime even matters any more to the Albanese government given its heartless dismissal of the Sterling First Group scandal.

This outrageous grift was a Perth-based housing product marketed to seniors as a “smart way to retire”, one in which large sums of their money were paid to secure supposedly long-term leases on property. Dozens of retirees were conned into selling their homes, then charged an upfront fee to move into these rentals without the need to pay rent. When the schemes inevitably collapsed in 2019, 100 retirees were left with losses totalling $30m. A Senate inquiry reported on this travesty in 2022 and handed down a dozen recommendations.

That was just months after Anthony Albanese stepped into the Lodge, with everyone involved waiting ever since for some sort of government reaction, perhaps even some access to compensation.

The long-awaited response was quietly tabled in parliament this week and, as you’d expect, it was hopelessly underwhelming, effectively brushing aside each of the 12 recommendations with a wave of the hand, saying: “Given the passage of time since this report was tabled, a substantive Government response is no longer appropriate.”

The only silver lining is that ASIC’s pursuit of Sterling promoters Raymond Jones and Simon Bell remains on foot. So, too, that of Jones’s son, Ryan, for his alleged role in aiding and abetting the dishonest conduct. The trio were charged in November and the matter is back in the Perth Magistrates Court in October.