Uber reverses the ferret out of the CBD

IT took alleged gypsy cab operator Uber little time to wilt in the face of overwhelming opprobrium at its profiteering from the Sydney CBD siege yesterday.

As an armed man held customers at a Martin Place Lindt cafe hostage, Uber responded in the way it knows best: by jacking up fares.

“We are all concerned with events in CBD,” Uber oozed on Twitter. “Fares have increased to encourage more drivers to come online & pick up passengers in the area.” Outrage ensued.

Uber spokeswoman Katie Curran initially told Margin Call the price surge was automated and the company wouldn’t be taking its usual slice of drivers’ earnings for the day. Less than half an hour later, she reversed the ferret: rides out of the CBD would now be free, she said.

Having a Lend

BACK in October, construction giant Lend Lease was happy to tell the market it had signed on to build the East West Link in Melbourne, revealing it had an equity stake in the East West Connect consortium hired to deliver the multi-billion toll road.

So with the new Labor Victorian government yesterday releasing thousands of pages of formerly secret documents about the project, sealing its decision to can the contract, Lend Lease rushed to tell the market what it meant for the company.

Oh wait, no it didn’t. All Lend Lease spokeswoman Natalie Causley would say was that the consortium was having “ongoing discussions with the state government”.

Liberal use of ‘might’

AND great to see the former Victorian Liberal government required detailed, specific information before signing off on a proposal to tip up to $3bn of taxpayers’ money into the public-private partnership.

In a presentation to cabinet, delivered in October last year and released yesterday, then-treasurer Michael O’Brien explained to his fellow ministers that “early indications from bidders are that the PPP D&C (design and construction) costs might start with a ‘4’”. That “might” is underlined and bolded.

No love for the link

MARGIN Call understands that during its time in power in Victoria Labor repeatedly considered building the link, but couldn’t make the finances stack up. That’s not bad from a government that approved a desalination plant that costs taxpayers hundreds of millions a year despite producing no water.

Labor also hid the fact that $1bn used to build a hospital that everyone thought came from investors actually came from the state-owned Victorian Funds Management Corporation — the $46bn investment fund for government employees and agencies. Yesterday’s document dump shows the VFMC was so uninterested in tipping money in East West Link it even refused to participate in an industry survey.

Oz waxes, AFR wanes

MEANWHILE advertising agency spend data for November is floating around medialand and Margin Call couldn’t help but notice that this fine organ’s takings are up 2.5 per cent on the same time last year.

Sadly, the only other national paper — The Financial Review — ad rake is off 9.4 per cent. Fairfax Media’s metros are also in pain, shedding 18 per cent over the month.

Win for Bellamy’s

EMBATTLED Tasmanian-based discount retailer Jan Cameron has finally had a win, with organic foods company Bellamy’s revealing a big profit upgrade yesterday.

Cameron, a foundation shareholder in Bellamy’s, sold out of the company for $36.6 million earlier this year but quietly bought back a cornerstone stake as part of the company’s ASX listing in July.

Bellamy’s said yesterday that strong demand for its products in Australia and China meant it would exceed its prospectus forecast for sales by 20 per cent and net profit by 20 per cent, sending the share price up almost 10 per cent.

It would be welcome news for Cameron after the collapse two years ago of her retail chain Retail Adventures, the company which operated Crazy Clarks and Sams Warehouse stores.

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