Victoria Racing Club seeks fees despite Covid uncertainty
Victoria Racing Club has been called many things in its more than 150-year history, only recently though could we say it has been optimistic.
As a mystery case of Covid-19 threatened to foil the state’s latest return out of lockdown, the stewards of Flemington and chair Neil Wilson were sending out their annual invoices, calling on members to renew their membership for 2021-22 and pay the associated dues.
The club, led since late last year by former Fremantle Dockers CEO Steve Rosich, set out its aspiration to host 60,000 a day over Cup Week – what would be quite the improvement on last year’s events (which had all crowds off limits due to Covid), even if it is a reduction from the usual 100,000.
That leaves just over three months for Premier Dan Andrews and the rest of his contact-tracing crew to get a hold on the virus and for Prime Minister Scott Morrison to get vaccines into arms.
However, some members of the club don’t have the same optimism, sharing their outrage with Margin Call under the condition of anonymity and describing the move as “the Melbourne Cup of cash grabs from an out-of-touch board”.
Last year’s woes saw fees at the club slashed by half – a similar move to the likes of the Melbourne Cricket Club, which charged members a discounted 70 per cent fee this year.
If, in the unlikely event, its worst fears are realised, the VRC added: “We will provide VRC members with a ‘make good’ for your membership that reflects the value of the missed Carnival race days.”
Timing of the membership drive, as the Royal Melbourne Show was called off for a second year running and after the cancellation of the F1 Australian Grand Prix, is hardly encouraging, though as our colleagues have pointed out previously, the club’s finances have been in quite the bind without the revenue boost from trackside events and entertainment.
We can hardly say the same for new chief Rosich, whose relocation to Melbourne from Perth has also included the recently settled purchase of a $4m Toorak penthouse, complete with private lift and lobby, three bedrooms with ensuites and terrace with city views.
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Wild west meeting
How uncomfortable is the next board meeting of Crown Resorts’ Perth outpost Burswood Limited going to be now that lone independent director Maryna Fewster has dropped a bucket on Crown executive chair and relatively new Burswood director Helen Coonan?
Fewster, who runs billionaire Kerry Stokes’ Seven West operations in Western Australia, was in the box for the Perth Casino Royal Commission on Thursday. The South African businesswoman, who previously had no experience in casinos, has been a director of Burswood, which is responsible for the operations of Crown Perth, since July 2019.
Fewster recalled how Coonan and Perth boss Lonnie Bossi joined the Burswood board in February and March respectively in order to achieve a quorum following a mass exodus of directors including Ken Barton, Barry Felstead and John Poynton in the wake of the NSW casino inquiry.
Fewster, who before Seven was a key executive for a decade at Seven West director Michael Malone’s iiNet, said she was against Coonan and Bossi joining the board and had made her thoughts known in emails to the chair after Fewster’s request to have a chat was ignored.
“I didn’t feel that at that point it was appropriate to put any management on the board of Burswood Limited,” Fewster said. “It should be a board in my view of non-executive directors.”
Fewster said the Burswood board met too infrequently, that there was no calendar of meetings, that board papers were “sloppy”, “without clear purpose”, “slapped together”, not provided in a timely manner and lacked a focus on Burswood and its specific needs.
“Some papers were merely telling me what executives had for breakfast,” she said.
Fewster added that the Burswood board was not structured correctly to fulfil the functions required of it and that from December last year through to mid-April had existed in “a complete vacuum of information” amid what she said was an obvious “crisis” at Crown.
“It’s just not feasible for a non-executive director to execute their duties,” she said.
Fewster said she had repeatedly offered her assistance to Coonan towards restructuring the board, but that so far this had not been taken up.
Yikes.
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The ‘Poynton effect’
Shares in James Packer’s Crown Resorts are trading at a calendar-year low.
And a former director of the casino group, Perth businessman John Poynton, who was appointed as a representative of Packer’s CPH, reckons he knows why.
It’s what you might call the “Poynton effect”.
Technical difficulties on Wednesday with the live feed from the west meant that Margin Call belatedly caught up with much of Poynton’s time in the box at the Perth Casino Royal Commission.
Future Fund director Poynton is still cranky about what he says was “inappropriate” pressure from Crown chairHelen Coonan for him to step down from the Crown Resorts and Burswood boards in February following the NSW Crown inquiry.
And him not being in the boardroom, he reckons, has taken its toll on Crown’s trading price. “I would make the additional point that I have specific expertise, that I think, given the $2.45bn reduction in the valuation of the company since I left, might have assisted,” Poynton told the commission.
Only days ago it was his lawyer, Peter Ward, quashing reports of Poynton’s involvement in a possible bid for the casino amid any potential divestment.
If his evidence is anything to go by, perhaps he should reconsider.
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The Mayne event
There were plenty of the usual suspects when it came to Macquarie’s Peter Warne-led virtual AGM on Thursday – the fracking opponents, the Nuix investors and of course vocal shareholder activist Stephen Mayne.
In a departure from his usual criticisms, however, Mayne’s commentary was glowing (at least for one question), putting to the board that they consider co-operating with an author to write the story of the millionaire’s factory like that of Aussie icons Andrew Forrest or Kerry Stokes.
Although flattered, Warne told the meeting he was focused on running the business and meeting its obligations, meaning he’ll just have to settle for the group’s latest 308-page annual report.
However, when it came to questions of chief executive Shemara Wikramanayake and her tenure, there was no such niceties.
As she affirmed her commitment to the group, she added: “Sorry if it’s unnerving for you that we might have a 60-year-old CEO.”
No apologies needed.
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