Virus’s latest victim: cancer bash canned

Cartoon: Rod Clement.

The $800-a-head Silver Party, scheduled for the Vaucluse harbourfront mansion of hotelier Justin Hemmes this weekend, has been postponed.

The theme for what has long been one of Sydney’s top annual charity events was to have been “haute boheme”.

“We will continue to host Silver at Hermitage next year,” the charity committee advised the disappointed 400-plus intending glitterati attendees.

“We have been monitoring the situation and it is with deepest regret that, on behalf of the Sydney Children’s Hospital Foundation and the Kids Cancer Centre, we ­advise that we are postponing Silver Party 2020 until February 2021,” a statement read.

It followed the recent government edicts on social distancing and crowd gathering numbers following the coronavirus scare.

The invitations, offering inspirations including 1960s models Twiggy and Marisa Berenson, movie stars Sophia Loren and Barbra Streisand and singer Mick Jagger, arrived in mailboxes last month. Guests were being advised to stick to flat or wedge shoes, sandals or barefoot.

Sponsors included Belvedere Vodka, 2GR wagyu and Vittoria Coffee, while Jordan Tofts, Simon Zalloua and Tal Buchnik were among the chefs lined up to serve the elite crowd.

Each year a who’s who of Sydney society raises funds under the stewardship of chair Maree Andrews. Her committee members include designer and chicken heiress Tamie Ingham, the longtime Hermes boss Karin Upton Baker, public relations agency boss Naomi Parry, Airbnb property investor Marly Boyd, food blogger Stephanie Conley Buhre and fashion designer Camilla Freeman-Topper.

The party was set to fund pioneering clinical trials in cancer treatment hoping to lift childhood survival for conditions like diffuse intrinsic pontine gliomas (DIPG), which remains fatal.

Last year’s Silver Party was held at Shane and Penny Moran’s mansion Swifts at Darling Point. Some $1.1m was raised, with Hemmes leading the donations by pledging $100,000. More than 300 guests attended the gothic-style home with the night’s Hollywood Silver Screen theme.

One of the auction fundraising items last year was a dinner sometime for 12 hosted by Guillaume Brahimi which was bought by Annie Cannon-Brookes, wife of the Atlassian co-founder Mike Cannon-Brookes, for $42,000. Not sure who they got around to inviting.

The Silver Party has raised more than $7m for the foundation since its 2001 inception. Over the past 30-plus years the foundation has contributed $130m to support sick children and their families.

No word yet on the foundation’s Gold Dinner, which was set for its 23rd year knees-up in early May.

As distressing as it is for the delayed fundraising efforts, it is not as though Hemmes and his Merivale team don’t have other things on their minds. There’s the new regime for hotels and restaurants involving crowd limits of 100 for indoors and 500 for outdoors.

The Merivale team will no doubt be looking at how to capture those who do seek to escape their voluntary isolation into any one of their 50-plus venues across NSW. Merivale’s Ivy has been known to regularly hold some 5000 attendees.

Food for thought

James Viles, one of Australia’s hottest young chefs, has closed the doors of his longtime two-hatted Bowral restaurant, Biota Dining.

He served his final meal earlier this month, with SV Partners accountants Shumit Banerjee and Jason Lloyd Porter called in to work out the fate after the Viles family decided on a voluntary winding up.

James, who was once a co-host with Lyndey Milan on Channel 9’s cooking show Fresh, operated from leasehold premises.

The low tourist numbers after the summer bushfires in the Southern Highlands had a big impact, but his fate was sealed after the COVID-19 saw diners cancel their bookings.

The restaurant was set up in 2011 with Viles’ father, the former futures trader Iain Viles. Biota Dining won a coveted chef’s hat in its first year, when Viles was just 23, with another chef’s hat added a year later.

Known for his wild mushroom and soured creme waffle, Viles’ career began as chef at The Schoolhouse in the Southern Highlands where he had grown up. He then worked overseas to gain experience working in kitchens with the likes of Alain Ducasse at Spoon in Hong Kong.

Fitness First out of puff

Clover Moore’s preparing to shut down her City of Sydney gyms, but what about Chris Hadley’s private equiteers at Quadrant who own the loss-making Fitness First-dominated Fitness and Lifestyle Group?

In August last year the company refinanced what was its $1.1bn net debt at the end of the financial year, after it incurred interest expense of almost $130m in the year for a bottom line loss of $100m.

And that was in a good year, when there was no coronavirus and health-conscious folk were still turning up at the group’s 510-plus clubs, whose brands also include Jetts and Good Life, across the Asia-Pacific.

“While the group has incurred losses before income tax resulting in a negative net asset position (of $188m) … the directors have reasonable expectations that the group has adequate resources to continue in operation,” the company promised in just-released accounts for the 2019 financial year.

But what now for the operations, which Quadrant began rolling up with its buy of Fitness First in 2016, as gym junkies stop swiping their access cards in fear of catching highly contagious COVID-19 while working out?

Margin Call hears that custom at Fitness First is plummeting. The group has already confirmed a case of coronavirus at its George Street gym, while at Bond Street we are told daily swipes are down from 4000 to 1000.

That’s smashing personal trainers, who run their own small businesses out of the group’s gyms and in return pay a fee to the private equity owners. Many are now baulking at paying those fees, which contribute to group revenue.

Members who don’t want to risk catching anything are also suspending memberships, which is expected to further dent the year’s receipts.

All that and a decimated sharemarket puts paid to any plans by Hadley and his team to float their four-year-old investment. There was talk of a trade sale last year to a rival private equity outfit, but trading conditions mean Quadrant is stuck with health and fitness for some time yet.

The group also owns Rockpool Dining Group.

Meanwhile master of the universe Hadley is trying to flog his luxury pad in Mosman for more than $10m, with inspections scheduled this week and expressions of interest closing next week.

We hope potential buyers remember to sanitise at the front door.