Tse’s Wattle Hill fund gets up, sans­ ­the Rudd in-laws

Illustration: Rod Clement

Newly-minted private equiteer Albert Tse hasn’t taken a cent from wealthy mother-in-law Therese Rein or father-in-law and former prime minister Kevin Rudd to fill the first round of funding for his Wattle Hill fund.

In fact, Tse, a former MacBanker in Beijing, and his wife Jessica Rudd, who is a local ambassador for Jack Ma’s internet giant Alibaba, like to keep their distance from the former PM and Rein, who is one of Australia’s richest women.

Albert Tse, Jessica Rudd and daughter Josephine.

Wattle Hill’s fresh interest in ASX-listed ginger producer Buderim Ginger (up 12.7 per cent yesterday) has put the new fund on the map. A second capital raising is planned once initial monies are spent on investments in food manufacturing and processing companies that have export ­potential to China.

A further two deals are believed to be close to fruition.

The deal flow is being overseen by Tse’s heavy-hitting advisory board, which counts former NSW premier Nick Greiner, James Packer’s former right-hand man and now Ellerston Capital chief Ashok Jacob, Kerry Stokes’s adviser and ­former Howard government minister Warwick Smith and AFL commissioner Gabrielle Trainor.

So far, Tse’s fund is believed to be bereft of Australian investors. But with stewards like those watching over his shoulder, we don’t expect that will last for too long.

In another KRudd connection, Buderim’s ginger operations are just 10 minutes down the road from Nambour, where the two-time prime minister was born.

Tse will take up a seat on the listed company’s board.

But, unhelpfully, there is no place at the table for his father-in-law, who might be scratching around for things to do after being knocked back from his planned tilt at the secretary-general gig at the UN, which has been secured by former Portuguese prime minister Antonio Guterres.

Back in the game

They’re an enterprising bunch, the Rudds.

Kevin Rudd and Therese Rein.

Former first lady Therese Rein appears to be ready to put herself back in the game after working out her time at her international recruitment business, Ingeus, which she sold to American interests two years ago in a deal worth up to $222 million.

Rein and her Ingeus managing director, Greg Ashmead, ­finished at the London-based company last October and have been lying low since then.

Now the pair have reunited via a new venture, Rein and Ashmead Advisory, controlled by their respective private vehicles. Multi-millionaire Rein, who previously featured on Australia’s rich list before falling off the tail-end as stakes were raised, has invested in the new enterprise via her Confidence Nominees.

Also by Rein’s side as a director of that company is businessman and adviser David Gonski, who was commissioned by then education minister Julia Gillard to conduct an education review for what was then the Rudd government.

As well as being chairman of ANZ and a director of ASX-listed Coca Cola Amatil, Gonski has many more private roles of the ilk of the Rein project.

He was executor of late media baron Kerry Packer’s will, is a director of several vehicles related to Kerry Stokes’sprivate Australian Capital Equity, as well as companies associated with fellow banker Simon Mordant.

And he is a close personal friend of our current first couple, Malcolm and Lucy Turnbull, who live just up the road from the businessman.

Elliott zinged

Moving on to the big four bank David Gonski chairs, ANZ, which was hauled back into the fray in Canberra for a second day.

Coalition MP Julia Banks speaks to ANZ CEO Shayne Elliott. Picture: AAP Image/Lukas Coch.

On Wednesday, the only female member of David Coleman’s 10-person banking committee, Victorian Liberal Julia Banks, brought up a sexist encounter she had with an ANZ bank manager in the early 1990s — some decades before Shayne Elliott was its CEO.

The bank has a particular sensitivity over sexism, as stories of nude sushi lunches, strip club sign-on parties and pervy Bloomberg terminal chats have all made the “hot issues” list at ANZ since Elliott took over in January.

So imagine ANZ’s horror when the story was told again yesterday, as a way of praising Westpac boss Brian Hartzer.

“Mr Hartzer, I’d like to compliment you on your work in relation to the Male Champions of Change Program. It seems to me that you have an authentic and genuine understanding of what this means,” said Banks. “Unlike your peer, Mr Elliott.”

Zing.

Banks again told the story of when, as a woman of child-bearing age, she was treated rudely by an ANZ bank manager.

Westpac boss Hartzer nodded politely. Banks declared his a much better response than Elliott’s the day before.

“He completely missed the point,” she said.

Hold the line

Greens member Adam Bandt had to phone in from Melbourne for his 15 minutes with the big four bank CEOs this week.

Greens MP Adam Bandt and partner Claudia Perkins.

Bandt contributed to the committee by telephone because his partner Claudia Perkins is heavily pregnant, and due to deliver their second child any moment.

The inner north Melbourne couple have a daughter, Wren. And — fun fact — Perkins was previously a policy adviser to Julia Gillard.

Out of order

Despite our best remedial efforts, the “out of service” sign was still hanging on the Westpac ATM when the bank’s American-born boss, Brian Hartzer, appeared — about 50 steps away — before Coleman’s committee yesterday.

In its defence, the bank has two other ATMs — both functioning — and a small branch office, in the Parliament House fortress in Canberra.

As we understand it, the “out of service” stamped ATM has been scheduled for relocation to another, better trafficked, pocket of the building.

While that relocation wasn’t able to be executed before Hartzer’s 1.15pm appearance yesterday, sources at the bank are confident it should be achieved before his committee appearance next year.

A gift to miners

China might be flavour of the month for some, but marathon-running miner Jake Klein of gold producer Evolution seems perfectly happy digging in Oz.

Evolution’s Jake Klein. Picture: Stuart McEvoy/The Australian.

Before a gathering of more than 550 mining types at a Melbourne Mining Club lunch yesterday, Klein was asked if the addition of an overseas mining operation to its mines in NSW, Queensland and Western Australia was a possibility.

Before an audience that included Qantas chairman and former head rock-kicker at Rio Tinto Leigh Clifford (who has just joined the board of UBS Wealth Management spin-off Crestone) and 90-year-old club patron Sir “call me Arvi’’ Parbo, Klein said that after having spent his first 17 years in the industry mining in China, he believed “Australia is a great place to mine”.

“I often do refer to it as God’s gift to miners. We live in this vast, unpopulated, resource-friendly country and there is, in our view, plenty of opportunity.’’

No “Lock the Gate” troubles for him, then.

Off to a good start

After 12 years working at Lloyd Blankfein’s investment bank, Goldman Sachs’s Hayley Morris is leaving the nest — sort of. Morris, head of Goldies corporate communications Down Under, is setting up shop with fellow Goldman alumni Emily Blyth, who was previously in London running communications for mining giant Anglo American.

Goldman Australia boss Simon Rothery.

The new business is called Consiglio and opens on October 17. The pair will work out of a sandstone on Sydney’s George Street, handily located just around the corner from Justin Hemmes’s Felix.

They’re off to a good start, signing up Simon Rothery’s Goldman kingdom of Australian and New Zealand as their anchor client. That works for Rothery, as he won’t need to fill the gap internally.

And it’s a good start for the business.

What with Newgate, Cannings, GRACosway, Domestique, John Connolly & Partners and Bespoke Approach, it’s crowded out there in corporate communications land.