There’s something about John Neal at QBE

Illustration: Rod Clement.

It’s been a curious week for Australian insurance giant QBE and its chief executive John Neal, who has had his pay docked $550,000 for his untimely disclosure of his ongoing affair with his personal assistant.

QBE boss John Neal. (Britta Campion/The Australian)

But maybe Neal’s recent revelation of the workplace relationship to his chairman Marty Becker shouldn’t have come as such a shock to the US-based head director.

Neal, 52, separated from his wife Helen Neal last year.

Before she was Mrs Neal, she was the now QBE boss’s personal assistant too, back when he was still climbing the greasy pole in London.

When Helen, who was Neal’s second wife, left her job, she was replaced by her husband’s current trim, 40-something PA.

And we all know what happened after that.

What’s that they say about a leopard changing its spots?

Neal’s girlfriend and still PA is now said to be looking for a new job outside the insurer to make things a bit less awkward in the group’s hot and sweaty executive suites.

The question doing the rounds at QBE is: will she be involved in selecting her replacement before she goes?

Where’s Viv?

Events of the week would have made for some interesting dinner conversation when John Neal got home to his new love after long days briefing big-ticket investors in Sydney on QBE’s full-year results.

Former group chief operating officer at QBE Insurance Colin Fagen.

Neal’s been handling the unfolding personal crisis as his new communications adviser Vivienne Bower works offshore.

Bower — the former Lendlease comms boss — started the week at QBE headquarters holding Neal’s hand at the results presser, coaching the red-faced boss on how best to answer awkward personal questions.

His performance received mixed reviews, to put it generously.

Bower only came on board in January, just weeks before news of the boss’s affair and his sacking of chief operations officer Colin Fagen exploded.

She replaced Jenni Smith, who left in December after 13 years as part of Neal’s wholesale clean-out of his executive ranks. In her final year, Smith was paid $1.2 million.

On top of that, she left the building with a $600,000 termination benefit in her handbag. Plenty to smile about there.

Count the cash

While we’re talking cash, closer reading of the QBE annual report gave us a bit of a shock yesterday.

We’ve told you that after the $550,000 was taken out of John Neal’s bonus, he was paid a total of $3m. That petite figure was widely reported.

But closer inspection, this time with our glasses on, reveals Neal is due for a 25 per cent pay rise — at least in our copy.

The Brit actually got $US3m, which works out at $4m in local currency.

Date with destiny

While on the subject of workplace liaisons, Tim Worner’s former mistress Amber Harrison and the media company Worner is still the CEO of, Seven West Media, are back in the Supreme Court today.

The legal gathering is expected to be procedural.

But afterwards we should have a date set for the next significant instalment in Seven’s sex-governance-and-expenses scandal: a two-day hearing, after which a decision should be made on the future of the injunction that has for weeks silenced the former executive assistant, Harrison.

If the planets align, those two days in court — which could be as early as next month — could be something for the ages.

In addition to Harrison, witnesses that might be called include Worner, Seven’s legal mastermind Bruce McWilliam, Seven West Media director Jeff Kennett, former SWM director Sheila McGregor (who, we believe, was last spotted in a cave in Siberia — wearing a mask) and, most exciting of all, the billionaire proprietor himself, Kerry Stokes.

Can you imagine? It could make Jack Nicholson’s Colonel Nathan Jessep look tame.

“You want answers?”

“Uh, just the Allens report, Mr Stokes.”

“You can’t handle truth!”

“Sure, right then, Mr Stokes. But about that report ...”

Meanwhile, it seems Harrison’s complaint lodged at the forgetful Gillian Triggs’ Australian Human Rights Commission has all but petered out.

As we reported last month, the commission in its preliminary finding judged that Harrison’s complaint against the Seven Network could not be substantiated. It seems that will be the end of it.

Triggs’ slow-moving shop was used back when the case was still secret — clearly not the state of things any more.

Still, some welcome good news for the Stokes camp.

Petrol head

Manildra agribusiness mogul Dick Honan dropped by the ministerial offices of Gladys Berejiklian’s NSW government yesterday.

Head of Manildra Group, Dick Honan at an ethanol plant near Nowra (Picture: Alan Pryke)

We understand they were at 52 Martin Place to meet with one of Premier Berejiklian’s key backers, Matt Kean, the new Minister for Innovation and Regulation.

Honan — with a fortune last valued at $478m — is one of the state’s biggest donors to the NSW Coalition government. When Labor was in power, he was generous there, too.

One bit of regulation Manildra takes a keen interest in is the state government requirement that ethanol must account for at least 6 per cent of all petrol sold in NSW.

By some estimates that law raises the state’s petrol prices by as much as 8c a litre. Still, it’s working well for the wealthy Honan family.

Fundies’ frolic

There’s clearly no hard feelings between Goldman Sachs and the former local funds management team led by Dion Hershan, Roy Keenan and Katie Hudson after their breakaway late last to their own shop Yarra Capital Management.

The Wall Street giant’s local investment banking boss Christian Johnston, its former local managing director Paul Sundberg and former Goldman Sachs JBWere chairman Terry Campbell were all at the Richmond Rowing Club (appropriately, on the banks of the Yarra) on Wednesday night to launch the new group.

Representing some of Yarra’s investee companies were Crown Resorts numbers man Ken Barton, JB Hi-Fi chairman Greg Richards and Kathmandu boss Xavier Simonet. Star Entertainment Group chairman John O’Neill was a late starter after jetting down from Sydney following the funeral of former Wallaby Dan Vickerman.

Former TPG Managing partner Ben Gray.

Also there was former Future Fund boss turned Yarra chairman Mark Burgess, former TPG Australasia chief Ben Gray (who’s enjoying his gardening leave from the private equity giant before he sets up his own shop later this year), new Aurizon chair Tim Poole and wealth manager Will Hamilton.

Yarra is backed by US private equity firm TA ­Associates, which announced last September it was backing an MBO of the Goldies business, which managed more than
$8 billion on behalf of institutional and retail clients.