Wal close to snaring King of Coal’s crown

Cartoon: Peter Nicholson.

WILL Wal be the King of Coal after all? Way back in August former Leighton boss Wal King accepted a gig as chairman of Brisbane-based Guildford Coal, which is developing a mine in Mongolia.

But sadly King’s elevation to the throne stalled the following month when Singapore-listed Sino Construction lobbed an all-scrip takeover bid.

King said he would take the job after the stoush was resolved.

Yesterday, Sino threw in the towel, saying a rights issue Guildford launched last month to ramp up its Mongolian mine breached the conditions of the offer, and admitting it had only garnered 0.13 per cent of Guildford’s shares anyway.

This would appear to clear the way for King to take the crown, although the company was mum on the prospect yesterday.

Talk turns to Jac

Yesterday’s bare-bones announcement that Malcolm Broomhead will step down as Asciano chairman fired speculation BHP chairman Jac Nasser may not be able to match the tenure of predecessor Don “Don’t Argue” Argus.

Asciano gave no indication of the reason for the change, or the plans of 62-year-old Broomhead, other than to say it was part of “succession planning”.

Broomhead is already on both boards and became chairman of Asciano in October 2009.

His long career in the mining industry, including stints atop Orica and mine r North, makes him a logical fit to move up to the big chair at the Big Australian. It’s a seat Nasser has occupied since March 2010, so he is nowhere near matching Argus’s 11-year stint.

Presidential buzz

It’s the battle to be Queen Bee that has boardrooms buzzing.

At the AGM of Chief Executive Women (CEW) in Sydney in November, members were told their new president would be Transfield chairman and Wesfarmers director Diane Smith Gander.

Fair enough, they thought. But behind the scenes a polite yet extraordinary two-month battle has been taking place, triggering a secret ballot for the presidency for the first time in CEW’s history. Tradition had been that the departing president, in this case Christine Christian, politely passed the baton to her successor unopposed. But not this time.

Smith Gander and Lynette Mayne, a former Lend Lease executive who now owns Work Wear World, both made a hard run for the top job. And neither would back down, forcing Christian to call a postal ballot.

CEW hired Insync Surveys to facilitate the vote and both Smith Gander and Mayne embarked on a busy campaign of texting, fireside chats and phone calls to muster numbers. They were even asked to present in writing their respective visions, which were mailed to members.

In particular, Smith Gander played the publicity card hard. ‘’My wide portfolio of activities has given me a strong media profile and I am not afraid to take a perspective and speak out. I would seek to leverage this media profile at CEW,’’ she buzzed in her letter.

While the final voting was never revealed, it was apparently a close thing.

Breathless moment

Fresh from a bumper profit result and selling a cool $750,000 of bank shares, CBA boss Ian Narev fronted investors in Melbourne yesterday at a Credit Suisse lunch.

Chatham House rules applied, but by mid-afternoon chatter was doing the rounds that Narev had warned Australia was at serious risk of losing its AAA credit rating.

Hold the front page? Sadly not. Margin Call is told Narev actually said the government would do anything to ensure the rating was not threatened. Joe Hockey can breathe easy again — for the moment.

Off at a snail’s pace

If Macquarie works through complaints about its financial services arm at the rate it disclosed yesterday, it won’t finish until December 2017.

Since opening its remediation program in August, Nicholas Moore’s millionaire factory has received 2458 complaints or requests for file reviews and has dealt with just 326 — or about 65 a month. Of those, only 19 were found eligible for compensation.