Few rich-listers are as precious about privacy as Spotlight and Anaconda billionaire Zac Fried, especially on matters pertaining to his family’s vast wealth.
Fried’s problem, however, is that he’s been loose-lipped all over Melbourne about a bitter split between his sister, Dahlia, and soon to be ex-husband of almost 20 years Nathan Sable.
Usually one to keep a secret airtight, Fried has been very loud about his hiring of private investigators to snoop around on Sable, if only to try establish that his brother-in-law is independently wealthy and shouldn’t have a claim on Dahlia’s wealth, tied up as it is among the family’s $3.6bn in assets and treasure.
No one can ever be pink-cheeked and clean in an ugly break-up, but the Frieds are allegedly resisting like billy-oh any disclosure of their financial affairs, stalling negotiations and prompting both sides to lawyer up.
Wish any future arbiter of all this the very best of luck, too; the family’s wealth is held in a morass of unnavigable trusts, the distributions served on a bed of lettuce to a parade of children and grandchildren and aunts and cousins all living partly or wholly off whatever they receive.
To even try place a figure on anyone’s individual share would be guesswork at best.
Is Sable entitled to the extractable value of the family’s superyacht, R.M.F, in which his ex is said to hold a $15m share (and which is currently moored off Saint Tropez)? One for a hizzoner to decide, eventually.
The backstory to this is bog standard. The couple split in December, with Sable said to have ended it. Dahlia re-assumed her father’s name and by February was introducing LSN Capital Partners’ Nick Sladen to her pals.
Those unfamiliar with these people might have heard of Spotlight, or Anaconda, or Mountain Designs, or Harris Scarfe – they’re all owned by Spotlight Group.
Its executive deputy chairman is the aforementioned Zac Fried, son of the late Ruben Fried; and it was Ruben who founded the business with his brother Morry Fraid, himself a veteran of three divorces.
This alone has created another inconvenience for Sable. Apparently the most prominent divorce barristers in Melbourne would have all been conflicted out of acting for Sable because of their work with Morry in the past. Sable, we hear, has been looking around Sydney for some gun to advise him.
Sound familiar? It was Tom who created a similar problem for Shiv in Succession, remember?
Changing her tune
Years before Luba Grigorovitch married private equity big dog Ben Gray – and thereafter blazed a path out of the working class into a life of extravagance – she was the powerful secretary of Victoria’s Rail, Tram and Bus Union, cheekily dubbed by the papers as the unionist who could “stop every tram in Melbourne”.
Much has changed in the intervening years. Grigorovitch has since flung off her role with the RTBU and was parachuted into the safe Labor seat of Kororoit in 2022, held at the time with a margin of 20 per cent. She’s also moved in with Gray in South Yarra, well away from the constituents she on-again-off-again represents from a superyacht in the Mediterranean.
It’s not unheard of for an MP to live outside of their electorate, but it is frowned upon. Andrew Charlton and wife Phoebe Arcus showed serious mettle by moving their family out of a Bellevue Hill mansion and into the western Sydney heartland of Parramatta. A blow-in, sure, but it helped him win the seat at the 2022 federal election. Not as much luck for Kristina Keneally, who tried the same in Fowler and was smashed by a 16 per cent swing in the opposite direction. That’s what we call democracy manifest.
The difference in Grigorovitch’s case is that she’s on record only a couple of years before entering parliament castigating MPs who live outside of their seats.
In a submission made just shy of Labor’s 2018 Victorian State Conference, Grigorovitch proposed that MPs should prove they live in their electorate, or within 5km, to secure endorsement.
“I get this change could upset some members of parliament, but I also strongly believe Labor needs to get back and build deep roots in the community,” Grigorovitch said at the time.
And in words sure to haunt her: “We’re stronger when we mix directly with the people we represent and the reason I’ve put this up is I don’t think it’s good enough for someone who represents the rust belt to live in the inner city.”
The hypocrisy is dizzying, but not necessarily for someone with Grigorovitch’s hide. She told us in reply that her personal circumstances had clearly changed.
“It is no secret that I live outside of my electorate but I remain a proud westie,” she said. “And I continue to deliver results for the people of Kororoit, including funding for new schools, getting a level crossing removed and easing the cost of living pressures on families through our School Saving Bonus.”
Spare us the political guff. And a proud westie? Fine. Grigorovitch can call herself whatever she wants. No doubt her finger is squarely on the pulse of Deer Park from her penthouse just outside the CBD.
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