Andrew ‘‘Twiggy’’ Forrest’svisit to Papua New Guinea sees him leading a week-long Fortescue Metals investment and philanthropic delegation.
The team is said to be reviewing possible investment opportunities, including an involvement in the long-stalled Pacific Marine Industrial Zone in Madang, the Purari River Hydro electricity scheme in the south of the country and the Porgera gold mine. But he’s also using the time between meetings to join a historic search mission in West New Britain to locate the Beaufort bomber 188 of his uncle David John Forrest.
David was a No 100 Squadron pilot, believed to be shot down by Japanese forces near Gasmata Bay in May 1943 during the World War II.
The PNG State Enterprises Minister Sasindran Muthuvel advised Forrest’s research vessel, the 60m Pangaea Ocean Explorer, was searching the sea floor for evidence of the crashed aircraft. David, aged 23, was the son of Robert and Agnes Forrest. The bomber had no known nickname or nose art. Forrest has a doctorate in marine ecology.
All four of the crew are memorialised at Bita Paka Cemetery on the Rabaul Memorial.
“I pray and wish Dr Forrest all the best in his search while he is a guest of West New Britain,” Muthuvel said.
Australia’s richest man also plans to visit Indonesia with the delegation after meeting the PNG Prime Minister James Marape.
Bottom of the class
Maurice Blackburn has abandoned its pesky Federal Court class action against Westpac over the bank’s alleged responsible lending breaches. The inevitable move comes weeks after ASIC lost its appeal in the so-called wagyu and shiraz case.
The class action — Ian John Tate and others versus Westpac — was filed in February last year, six months before enforcement action by the Australian Securities & Investments Commission was thrown out by Justice Nye Perram in a colourful judgment.
The matter concerned whether Westpac’s lending processes sufficiently considered its customers’ declared living expenses, rather than just relied on the standardised Household Expenditure Measure (HEM) benchmark.
The Lawyerly website advises Maurice Blackburn’s funder, Harbour Litigation Funding, made the decision not to press on with the class action after the regulator announced it wouldn’t take its case to the High Court.
ASIC ended its legal pursuit citing the “challenging economic circumstances”. It also came after the chair of the parliamentary joint committee on corporations and financial services, James Paterson, suggested ASIC should “accept the umpire’s verdict”.
It is possible ASIC seeks reform of the National Consumer Credit Protection Act (National Credit Act) to clarify further the enforcement of lending principles.
But that is ultimately a matter for the federal government and parliament.
Bugatti brilliance
Melbourne businessman Andrew Cannon has managed to bring together his love of cars and his passion for property.
The honorary consul to Monaco’s latest residential project is an apartment complex of eight in Prahran where he proposes an entry foyer that replicates the style and colour of a Bugatti Veyron.
Of course Cannon owns a 1928 model, in which he won the historic car category at the 2014 Monaco Grand Prix.
The likes of Ralph Lauren, Cristiano Ronaldo and Tom Cruise own Bugatti Veyrons.
The Prahran property sits on the site of what was once a vintage car workshop, so in a sense it’s an homage to the heritage.
Cannon has been behind some of Melbourne’s more striking developments.
Think Monaco House, the four-storey office building on Ridgway Place, at the top end of Collins Street.
He hopes his development of the John Wardle-designed build-to-rent project in Prahran will secure young executives willing to pay around $1000 a week for their 424 Malvern Road apartments.
Dear departed
Some seven companies lost their status on the ASX on Monday after not paying their annual listing fees.
Freedom Insurance Group (FIG) was the most telling departure from the official list.
It was in early 2018 when Freedom Insurance was exposed for selling life insurance over the phone to a man with Down syndrome, and then refusing to cancel the cover.
The company’s reputation for aggressive sales tactics never recovered after taking a battering at the Hayne royal commission.
For well over a year Freedom Insurance shares have been in a trading halt, having fallen 96 per cent when called before the royal commission. It April last year it shut down all its business operations.
Zyber Holdings, Sterling Plantations, Jiancheng International Group, Moreton Resources, Pyrolyx AG, all struggling with COVID-19 affecting their manufacturing business, were among the other departees.
Late homework
For the top brass of James Packer’s Crown Resorts, one stint in the hot seat of Patricia Bergin’s inquiry into the inner workings of the casino giant’s operations has been more than enough.
On Monday, Crown’s top legal eagle Josh Preston found himself back in the box for his second stint via video link from Perth and immediately drew a rebuke from Bergin and counsel assisting Naomi Sharp for submitting his homework late at literally a minute to midnight.
When Preston last appeared as a witness on August 3 he was asked to check on Crown’s transaction monitoring program of its two suspect bank accounts, Southbank and Riverbank Investments, that were allegedly used by VIPs to launder money.
But his statement on the affair was only tendered to the inquiry after 11pm last Friday night, which earned him a slap on the wrist from Sharp before Crown’s counsel Rowena Orr quickly interjected to say how busy Preston had been over the past month.
Grilled by Bergin about the delay, he eventually admitted it took him until at least mid-August to come to his conclusions about the monitoring of the accounts.
“And then it took a period of time to draft the statement that had other questions associated with it. We wanted to ensure we got the right information,’’ he said of the late night lodgement.
Preston then admitted that Crown’s anti-money laundering team at its Melbourne or Perth casinos did not review the suspect accounts, which were not registered with federal transaction monitoring authority Austrac. He returns to the stand for his third stint on Tuesday before the appearance of Jason O’Connor, who spent 10 months in jail in China three years ago.
Taking its Toll
Japan Post has apparently appointed Nomura and JPMorgan after its ongoing advisers’ beauty parade to work out just how to end its ownership of the Australian transport and logistics heavyweight Toll Holdings.
It acquired Toll in a $6.5bn deal in 2015 but ongoing losses forced the Japanese group to write off $4.9bn in 2017. It remains Australia’s No 1 road freight transport company and No 2 integrated logistics player behind Australia Post.
The mandate will heighten the intrigue as to whether founder Paul Little will be tempted to take a look under the Toll hood and reinvest his fortune, akin to Kerry Packer buying back Channel Nine in June 1990 for $250m three years after selling to Alan Bond for $1.2bn.
NBN promotion
NBN executive Kathrine Dyer has been rewarded for her role in rolling out the national broadband network. She’s been made the company’s chief operating officer after being chief network deployment officer for the last three years.
The appointment comes five years after NBN scrapped the COO role when Greg Adcock departed in 2015.
Dyer joined the telco in November 2010 and has spent the last 10 years tackling the nation’s biggest infrastructure project.
Dyer had previously spent 16 years at Telstra, where her fibre journey began in 2004.
Some 7.4 million homes and businesses are now connected, compared with 5.7 million in July 2019.
Artist who featured Hezbollah leader dropped as Australia’s pick for Venice jaunt
It looks like Margin Call’s deep dive into the questionable early oeuvre of Sydney artist Khaled Sabsabi has ended his selection as Australia’s pick for the Venice Biennale in 2026.
Champagne and burritos as Douglass dines out on GYG
Former Magellan chairman Hamish Douglass has broken cover to celebrate his good fortune at keeping a sizeable toe in the water with fast food chain Guzman y Gomez.