Up, up and away for RBA governor Glenn Stevens

Illustration: Rod Clement.

After a decade of pulling the monetary policy levers at the Reserve Bank, come Saturday governor Glenn Stevens will be up, up and away.

Outgoing RBA governor Glenn Stevens.

On Sunday, deputy governor and Wagga Wagga’s favourite son Philip Lowe will take up the top office on his own tour of duty controlling Australia’s cash rate.

Always a fastidious character, the Sylvania Waters-residing Stevens, 58, is well prepared for life after central banking. In the weeks ahead of his departure, Glenn and wife Susan have established SGS Superannuation Fund, a self-managed super fund named after their initials.

During his decade as governor, Stevens earned about $1 million a year — including towards $200,000 a year in super contributions.

Assuming the governor has been careful with his money — a fair assumption — it should be a tidy nest, as he considers a future as a blue-chip director.

The super fund directorship is the latest addition to his spread of personal companies, joining D&G Aviation, the holding company for the Stevens aviation collection.

Pride of place in the fleet is his Piper PA-34 Seneca, an American-built twin-engined light aircraft — a plane, built in 1985, that is almost as reliable as the gov­ernor.

The guitar-playing economist uses the plane for volunteer flights for Angel Flight, a charity that delivers medicine to rural patients.

The outgoing Stevens today returns from what was his 44th trip to the Swiss town of Basel (central banking HQ), where he farewelled his central banking peers.

That send-off followed last week’s Scott Morrison-adorned function at Sydney’s Museum of Contemporary Art. The night before that, Stevens’ RBA board of directors sent him off at a private dinner at the bank’s HQ. And after that, his staff — led by Lowe — said goodbye at a function at NSW Parliament House last Thursday.

The boss was presented with a framed set of all the bank notes that he has signed in his time as governor, including the just released new $5 note.

All farewelled yet? Not quite. Come Friday, Stevens, party liaison, is expected to enjoy an intimate goodbye with his key staff.

Good guy celebrates

The Good Guys executive chair Andrew Muir won’t get his $870 million cheque from JB Hi-Fi boss Richard Murray for a few months yet, but the retailer was still celebrating with his staff at the group’s Essendon Fields head office yesterday.

Andrew Muir, chairman and owner of The Good Guys, has sold the company to JB Hi-Fi for $870 million. (Paul Jeffers/The Australian)

Having signed on the line on Monday night for the sale of the enterprise that his late father Ian founded in 1952, Muir will share in the rich proceeds of the cash sale with family.

The spoils will be divided between Andrew, his mother Joan Muir, 83, and sister Carolyn Muir, 51, who has significant pastoral interests out of Ivanhoe and Moama on the Murray in NSW.

The Good Guys chair took advice on the trade sale from his long-trusted financial adviser Marcus Fletcher, from Helfen Corporate Advisory, and was also assisted by Merrill’s Thomas Wu.

Macquarie’s David Mustow did the deal for JB Hi-Fi.

While it’s the end of an era for the family, Muir still has retail interests.

Alongside private equity outfit Archer Capital, he controls a large slice of the big-box pet-care business that he founded, Best Friends Pets, currently expanding on the east coast.

Last year Muir, who is a mad AFL Bombers fan and last year became a director of his beloved Essendon under the chairmanship of Lindsay Tanner, was on the rich list with a fortune valued at $651m.

This week’s deal should lead to a steep rise up the list for Muir, who these days spends considerable time in London while maintaining an expansive Toorak home, and residences in Sorrento and Hamilton Island. As you do.

Hair today, gone ...

Twenty-five years ago yesterday, the Commonwealth Bank was publicly listed on the ASX. So while then treasurer Paul Keating was overseeing Australia’s first major privatisation, what was current CBA boss Ian Narev up to?

Ian Narev as a child actor

By that stage, his curly-haired child acting days in the past, Narev was working as an intern at a law firm in Tel Aviv.

His legal studies at Auckland University were making waves. As the bell rung on CBA’s listed debut in 1991, Narev’s honours thesis “Unjust Enrichment and De Facto Relationships” was published.

That work, which we gather has been cited in the Canadian High Court, dealt with, among others, same-sex relationship property rights — a quarter of a century before Narev became a high-profile corporate champion for same-sex marriage in Australia.

Ian Narev speaking after ringing the bell for the opening of trading at the ASX yesterday. (Adam Yip/ The Australian)

After law, Narev’s hair thinning, he joined management consulting firm McKinsey, in 1998. By 2007 — his hair long sacrificed to consulting — he joined CBA, which he took over in late 2011.

Boston alumni

To another accomplished former consultant Alan Tudge, the former Boston Consulting Group disciple now Human Services Minister.

Minister for Human Services, Alan Tudge MP. (Aaron Francis/The Australian)

Indeed, there’s a clear BCG thread running through recent comings and goings in the Turnbull minister’s office. Fellow ex-BCG consultant Andrew Asten is now the ambitious Tudge’s chief of staff. The former policy adviser Asten replaces the well regarded John Deller, who has left for the expansive green pastures outside of staffer world.

Meanwhile, another former Tudge adviser, Jared Newton,has left to run government affairs at Australia Post, which is run by another BCG graduate, Ahmed Fahour.

Spinning off

For a former Rio Tinto spinner, Hintons boss Tim Duncan has done remarkably well over the years from his former rivals in the sector.

His senior sidekick for many years has been Nerida Mossop, of ex-WCM and Incitec fame. More recently, former BHP Billiton spinner Simon Westaway has been ensconced in Hintons’ Melbourne bunker.

Now both are making a fresh start. Westaway, also a former Jetstar and Orica flack, has taken up running the Australian Livestock Exporters Council, while Mossop will return to her roots when she finishes at Hintons this week after advising The Good Guys on its sale to JB Hi-Fi. After a break in the sun, she’s taking up a role with the merry ex-BHP camp at Alberto Calderon’s explosives maker, Orica.

Former Orica CEO Ian Smith.

It’s a more gentle place to the world Westaway endured when he was spinning there for Orica’s former boss Ian Smith, who took the combustible thing a bit literally.

Former BHP spinner Sam Stevens has been with Calderon — another former BHP exec — at Orica for a couple of years following the departure of her former BHP boss Marius Kloppers (the soup warrior).

Former AFR scribbler and Ferrier Hodgson spinner Michael Cave is now moving to Hintons with Duncan, who is still flanked by his former Rio colleague and head of the Australian Uranium Association, Michael Angwin.