The plot thickens at Fairfax Media’s Domain

Illustration: Rod Clement.

Fairfax chairman Nick Falloon was out to lunch with Domain boss Antony Catalano on Friday, as private equity shop TPG wargames a $3 billion bid for the erstwhile media company’s prized property asset.

The Cat, we understand, returned to work last week after a trip to America where, incidentally, the TPG private equity behemoth is headquartered. The vacation was the final leg of Catalano’s 50th birthday extravaganza, which began more than a fortnight earlier at Melbourne’s beachside Stokehouse restaurant and bar.

Fairfax chairman Nick Falloon.

Domain’s Anthony Catalano.

Fairfax boss Greg Hywood was along for his buddy’s St Kilda knees-up, but Falloon didn’t make it.

The lunch on Friday at North Bondi was a good way for the chairman to show some love to Fairfax’s Prodigal Son.

TPG’s new 38-year-old local boss Joel Thickins, who took over from Ormond College’s Ben Gray in November, is keen to get his hands on Domain. At the right price.

As we revealed last week, Thickins has his foot on Fairfax stock below the substantial notice threshold of 5 per cent. It’s held via an indirect interest so it’s not showing up on the Fairfax register — a standard tactic to try to keep the stock price down ahead of a proper tilt.

The private equity gang are interested in a Cat-run Domain, an opinion surely only firmed up during discussions with Catalano’s good friend Alex Waislitz, the Melbourne-based billionaire investor who owns a bit over 2 per cent of Fairfax.

Falloon and Hywood, meanwhile, have talked up a spin-off of Domain, also under The Cat’s leadership. Talk about that impending float may have encouraged TPG to activate its bid.

So now what? Seems that’s up to Thickins.

Emperor Kroger

To the chagrin of his enemies, Michael Kroger remains the Emperor Napoleon (before the Corsican’s Saint Helena troubles) of the Victorian division of the Liberal Party.

On Saturday, Kroger was ­returned as Liberal president after a stroke ended Peter Reith’s tilt. Kroger’s candidates won all but one position at the division’s state council over the weekend.

Opposition leader Matthew Guy controversially backed Reith’s bid. Repairing relations with president Kroger ahead of next year’s campaign against Premier Dan Andrews must now be top of the Victorian Liberal leader’s agenda — unless he wants to gift Labor a second term. To that end, we hear Guy and Kroger will meet this week to smoke the peace pipe. For the party’s sake, that couldn’t happen soon enough.

Marcus Bastiaan and Michael Kroger at the footy.

Many of Guy’s parliamentary colleagues in Spring Street remain appalled with Kroger for not telling the 20-something upstart powerbroker Marcus Bastiaan to leave their seats alone.

It was interesting then that Bastiaan was only metres apart from Kroger at the top of the escalator at the Melbourne convention centre, welcoming delegates as they arrived before Saturday’s vote. After Team Bastiaan’s victorious weekend, it’s hard to see why Kroger will move away from them in the near future — a scary thought for some of Guy’s parliamentary colleagues.

The Kroger-Guy tiff seems eminently fixable. It’s certainly in both their interests to get the relationship between the state parliamentary party and the state machine back on track. No one’s legacy is improved by losing. Still, a gift — perhaps a head — for the victorious Kroger could help. As Guy’s senior adviser Tony Barry might ask ahead of their meeting, “Wonder what those two are concocting?”

Media man leaves

One person leaving Matthew Guy’s office is his senior media adviser James Duncan.

Duncan is off to work for Stephen Conroy at Responsible Wagering Australia, a group that lobbies on behalf of James Packer’s CrownBet and other online gambling websites.

Stephen Conroy.

Conroy, also a paid talking head on Sky News, is the inaugural chief executive of RWA, which is currently based at Melbourne’s South Bank, a short stroll along the Yarra River from Crown Melbourne.

The group is chaired by former Liberal senator Richard Colbeck. More connections on the Liberal side won’t hurt.

But it’s not clear any hire, however capable, will help much with King of the Senate Nick Xenophon, who got into politics to clamp down on gambling.

Building bridges

Before we leave the orbit of Victorian Liberal politics, let the record show that Michael Kroger said something positive about the Business Council of Australia. For real.

“I’m very happy the Business Council took a strong stand supporting the federal government’s tax plan, which is very welcomed,” Kroger told The Australian after state council.

Chalk it down as a win for BCA president Grant King, who spent much of last week advocating the Turnbull government’s company tax cut plan in Canberra.

And it’s quite a change from Kroger’s scathing comments about the BCA back when Catherine Livingstone was running the big business lobby.

Symond’s 70th

Aussie John Symond and his wife Amber have been recent guests at the Hotel Hermitage, one of Monte Carlo’s better hotels.

Call it party reconnaissance.

Amber and John Symond.

Perhaps inspired by billionaire Lindsay Fox’s “conception party” in the Mediterranean to celebrate the trucker reaching 79 years and three months, Symond is hosting a three-day extravaganza to celebrate his 70th birthday. The Hermitage is one of several top-shelf hotels that will house the 200-odd guests along for Symond’s Bacchanalia.

The home loan richie — who was last valued at $537 million — will hold the party in mid-September, a few weeks after the official day.

To mark the occasion, Symond will also launch his new $75m superyacht, which is nearing completion in a boatshed in The Netherlands.

Gonski chips in

Sure it’s a Westpac-backed not-for-profit, but last night ANZ chairman David Gonski launched Thrive, a new microfinance business aimed at helping refugees in Australia. More proof of the Chairman of Everything’s peerless network.

The worthy venture is the brainchild of Gonski’s friends John Curtis, now the chairman of insurer Allianz Australia, and his wife, former company director Anna Curtis.

In a previous life Curtis was the chairman of St George bank who hired Gail Kelly. Naturally the former Westpac deputy chairman and his wife will be among the crowd joining Brian Hartzer and his chairman Lindsay Maxsted at the bank’s Bicentennial Ball this Saturday.

Also along at the Thrive launch at Allianz’s Sydney CBD offices last night was Simon “Don” Mordant, whose boutique-backed Luminis Foundation is a major donor, along with Ilse O’Reilly and Gonski himself.