The Cat’s cruiser gets a makeover

Illustration: Rod Clement

Antony ‘The Cat’ Catalano’s luxury yacht Sea Raes has had its refit in Europe and is heading to Australia for the summer. This week after its Tamsin Johnson decor makeover the 26.6-metre yacht was loaded onto a ship in Spain.

Given no international holidays for a while yet, the entrepreneurial executive chairman of publisher ACM can expect strong booking inquiries for the $2.5m cruiser that has been undergoing its refit in Mallorca. It was bought two years ago when called Viking Legacy.

Margin Call gleans it will start charter operations out of Sydney from November, and sail along the east coast rather than the Mediterranean as it’s done in recent times.

Sleeping 10, its low season cost has been $US50,000 ($68,000) a week, so Margin Call didn’t inquire about its summer charter rates back here.

Sea Rae’s arrival should arrive in time for Birdy’s 21st birthday. Supplied images of Antony Catalano boat

Sea Raes is the first boat of Raes Yacht Charters, established by Catalano’s son Jordy. And it floats within the upmarket tourism empire based around the exclusive Byron Bay boutique retreat, Raes at Wategos.

The Cat’s daughter Birdy posted Sea Rae’s arrival would be just in time for her 21st.

Kids come first

As markets were going into a tailspin in March while the coronavirus panic swept the world, the text messages between Reserve Bank deputy governor Guy Debelle and Westpac’s group treasurer and funding guy Curt Zuber were heating up.

According to documents released under FOI by the RBA, Debelle sent a text to Zuber on Sunday, March 8: “Friday seemed messy. What was your take?”

The text followed a more than 7 per cent drop in the Dow Jones that Friday night.

Zuber responded: “No one wants to touch anything. LIBOR going wider and swaps the same. Very messy. Doesn’t feel like a lot of sellers but certainly no buyers around.”

Debelle responded: “Agree, I think people are just trying to figure out what this all means and the easiest decision at the moment is to do nothing, certainly not buy anything.”

The next Sunday it was Zuber’s turn to reach out to Debelle for a more detailed chat about “what I think the market is expecting here tomorrow”.

Even in times of crisis, RBA officials still have lives: “Will call in a second. Just setting up my eight-year-old’s birthday,” Debelle replied.

Out of contract

Global business leader David Thodey’s five-year stint is almost up as chairman of the CSIRO, the vital organisation that is leading our scientific research to extinguish the COVID-19 pandemic.

It was Dr Larry Marshall, its chief executive, who noted at the Press Club last month that COVID-19 and the bushfires of last season had brought into sharp focus the role of science in national preparedness.

“But it’s important to understand that this doesn’t just happen — it involves foresight, planning, and investment,” Marshall said.

With the clock ticking, some insiders had hoped Karen Andrews, the Minister for Industry, Science and Technology, would have decisively announced Thodey will seamlessly remain in the hot seat from October.

It just needs the reassuring stroke of a ministerial pen, as it is not that Thodey is out of favour. Indeed he sits on Scott Morrison’s national COVID-19 commission advisory board.

Pugnacious fundie

WAM Capital’s Geoff Wilson has kicked off another stockmarket skirmish.

He’s launched a takeover bid for rival listed investment company Concentrated Leaders Fund, which had equity and cash worth $104m and franking credits worth $10m as at June 30. It has since paid a 15.5c franked special dividend.

WAM Capital has offered two of its own shares in the bid, reflecting a 7.6 per cent premium to CLF’s reported pre-tax net tangible assets at July 31.

CLF is run by David Sokulsky, from Carrara Investment Management, and is best known for its veteran chairman Brian Sherman. The fund dates back to his Equitilink days, alongside Laurence Freedman.

Last Saturday Margin Call mentioned Wilson was involved in three battles, most recently with Marty Swizter’s Contango Income Generator fund, along with his stoush with Antony Catalano and Nicholas Bolton over the future of Keybridge Capital. There’s also a skirmish with former Rothschild managing director David Kingston, over Watermark’s Australian Leaders Fund.

Timely exit

Spare a thought for new Link Group chief executive Vivek Bhatia, who stood down as QBE Australia Pacific boss only last month — presumably under the impression that the top job at the insurer would be held by Pat Regan for a while yet.

Regan, of course, was dumped as QBE group chief executive on Tuesday. As The Australian revealed online, this was prompted by complaints of inappropriate communications to a female employee.

Bhatia — who last year traded in his VB1001-plated Tesla Model S for a Maserati Quattroporte — had been at QBE since 2018.

It remains an open question whether he would have been a shoe-in for Regan’s job. The position is currently being filled by the insurer’s chairman, Mike Wilkins.

A lingering scandal at state-owned insurer iCare — over the company’s involvement in paying for staff working for NSW Treasurer Dominic Perrottet, sky-high executive salaries and serious compensation claim mismanagement — could have proved a potential problem.

Before joining QBE, Bhatia was the inaugural iCare chief executive. And it was there that former senior compliance officer Chris McCann recently alleged an unnamed executive had told him “F--- this, f--- that … how dare you come in here and tell me this” after he had raised concerns about a potential conflict of interest between Bhatia and a company which had been handed a $200m contract.

Sharp-eyed observers of the Macquarie Street Hansard have noted this week the identity of the abusive executive is no longer a secret. It was allegedly Bhatia, according to the transcript of a law and justice parliamentary committee.

In this evolving world of executive accountability — where inappropriate behaviour is actioned with speed — would such a frank approach to employee relations been met with board approval? Seems unlikely.

Ashok pads up

The reappointment of Ashok Jacob as chair of the Australia-India Council board was formally announced this week by the Foreign Affairs Minister Marise Payne, after Margin Call readers got the inside word back in July.

Neema Premji, from Premji Board Consultancy and Management Services, has stepped aside from her role as acting chair, making way for Jacob, the executive chairman of Ellerston Capital, to find his way back onto the board.

The former Australian senator Lisa Singh, the first woman of South Asian heritage to be elected to the Australian parliament, has joined the board as deputy chair.

As Margin Call anticipated the former Victorian premier Ted Baillieu also makes his way onto the board. But rather than go with Brett Lee, the surprise appointment was former Australian cricketer Matthew Hayden, who scored his first century in 2001 when he made 100 against India at the Indira Priyadarshini Stadium in Visakhapatnam.

Racing certainty

John Singleton’s horse Harto returns to the track on Saturday in the first at Royal Randwick. The four-year-old by Fastnet Rock out of More Strawberries is named after his mate and co-owner, the veteran media executive John Hartigan.

Set to be ridden by Kerrin McEvoy, it has had one win from two starts. There was $42,200 prizemoney at Gosford last October.

“Singo asked me to name the horse a couple of years back, so I gave him about 20 names,” Hartigan advised. “He said they were all shithouse and so he named it. Harto it is, despite being a mare!”

Hartigan and his wife Miche Paterson are residing in the Hunter Valley, which is safer than the Four In Hand, his local pub in Paddington, which is currently on COVID-19 alert.