Treasury Wine Estates’ long-term view leaves sour taste at AGM

THE Treasury Wine Estates AGM in Melbourne had dragged into its second hour by the time chairman Paul Rayner came to a resolution on long-term incentive plans for the CEO.

At TWE, long term is three years — scarcely enough time to age one of the Californian reds that the company tipped into a New Jersey landfill last year.

One shareholder told the chairman that companies such as BHP and CBA see long term as five years. The chairman replied that TWE is different to BHP or CBA, inviting one shareholder up the back in the cheaper seats to yell out: “Yeah, they make money.”

Busy summer ahead

IT could be third time lucky for corporate raider Evoworld, which is making another stab at a partial takeover of cash-rich Perth explorer Neon Energy.

Evoworld’s backers, Timothy Kestel, Peter Pynes and Ross Williams, last month forced Neon to hold two shareholder meetings on the same day, one to approve the partial bid and the other to install themselves in place of directors Alan Stein, Ken Charsinsky and John Lander.

Evoworld and its associates — including Kestell’s splendidly named company Old Blood and Guts — are offering 3.5c cash for 30 per cent of the stake held by each shareholder. This would give them just under 50 per cent of the cash-rich company.

Neon is also in the middle of a merger with MEO Australia — a party to which Neon plans to bring $25.3 million cash while MEO is to tip in its projects.

It gets worse: MEO is in turn the subject of a rival bid from AIM-listed Mosman Oil & Gas, which it has rejected.

Back at Neon, Evoworld lost at both shareholder meetings last month, thrashed on the proportional bid, where it was not able to vote, but only narrowly on rolling the board.

It has launched legal action to overturn the first result and is convening a fresh meeting on the second.

That’ll be on January 14, right in the middle of the summer holidays, so Neon’s defence will depend on its ability to lure shareholders away from the joys of the beach, the cricket and crushing tinnies into the forehead and into a stuffy conference room.

Banking on a laugh

YOU know a discussion is dry when Financial System Inquiry chairman David Murray is the life of the party.

It wasn’t quite a lampshade-on-the-head moment, but the former CBA boss injected some much-needed life into a deathly dull discussion about bank liquidity rules yesterday.

Murray made the high fees charged by super funds to lose your money something of an issue in his final report.

So when RBA assistant governor Guy Debelle was congratulated following his speech for the commercial approach the RBA took to dealing with the banks, Murray couldn’t resist.

Debelle was explaining how the banks would need the RBA’s help to raise $250 billion, in exchange for a 15 basis point fee — a nifty earner for the central bank.

“I look forward to seeing when the RBA issues its next report on bank fees whether they will include the $412.5m they themselves will charge,” said Murray.

Hard to believe that CBA and the RBA were one and the same up until 1959.

Ageing on the menu

IT’S been a long year for the folk over at Commonwealth Bank, with yet another record profit for Ian Narev clouded by the never-ending financial planning scandal reaching new lows. Catching some respite yesterday was Matt Comyn, the young hot shot leading CBA’s massive retail banking division, yesterday lunching in the back room of Sydney Italian institution Machiavelli.

Comyn, who oversees the group’s largest and most profitable division, is widely tipped as a potential successor to Narev — although favourites don’t always win the race at CBA. So no wonder Comyn, in his late 30s, is becoming a bit of a silver fox. After a year like that at CBA, who wouldn’t have a splash of grey coming through?

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