When it comes to schmooze you gotta go with the snow; All power to the rehabilitation of Nev
Remember in June when Margin Call let slip that FTI Consulting would be whisking its prized clients on a private ski junket to Queenstown, New Zealand? It’s happening, right now. Some 25 of the firm’s most cherished piggy banks are in attendance for the four-day jaunt, accompanied by another 25-odd FTI staff who are keeping their glasses filled.
Word on the ground is that clients needed to have spent $1m in fees to have obtained an invitation. Among the fortunate few are partners from Mallesons, Freehills, Arnold Bloch Leibler and Gilbert + Tobin.
A couple of reps from Anchorage Capital Partners are also enjoying the comforts – no great shock given they tapped FTI during its tyre-kicking of Hertz Australia a couple of years ago.
Allegro’s people are there, as well, and they’re all being squired about by FTI’s senior managing director, Vaughan Strawbridge.
His people tried to play this all down in June as a harmless business development offsite.
Pacific National CEO Paul Scurrah nabbed an invitation but passed it up. Remember: he hired FTI to do some work on Scott’s Refrigerated Logistics when it slid into liquidation earlier this year. Plus Strawbridge (from his time at Deloitte) knows Scurrah (from his time as Virgin’s CEO), Deloitte having been engaged as administrators for the airline when it sank. Small world!
Anyway, “business development”? What kind of working offsite comes with winery tours, golf, skiing and feasting? Apparently there’s such an abundance of activities that everyone’s been told to download a specially developed FTI app so they can program their own adventure.
Clearly it’s the sub-million dollar clients helping to pay for it all, eh? Imagine putting on so many parties (sorry, “business development offsites”) that you need an app, available on the Apple App Store, to co-ordinate the fun!
More Power to him
Neville Power’s clearly trying his best to rehabilitate his image after copping that suspended jail sentence for flouting pandemic restrictions in Western Australia.
You may recall that Power flew a private chopper from a Queensland cattle station to WA in the midst of the Covid-19 Delta wave without troubling himself with the required paperwork or quarantining.
That little balls-up nearly cost the former Fortescue CEO (and his son) eight months in prison, which the cops were angling for. Luckily for them, the beak imposed a suspended sentence. “A disrespectful and foolish choice,” were the words used by the magistrate. Remember: Power was the guy appointed by Scott Morrison to lead the nation’s Covid-19 recovery commission!
Not long after the sentence expired, Power took a furtive step back into the corporate world, appointing himself a director of Gascoyne Salt Pty Ltd in partnership with former WA Liberal (and dual NZ citizen) Ben Small.
Looks like the recasting of Power continues. He’s down to host a private dinner (read: Liberal fundraiser) with Queensland Senator Susan McDonald. We hear Power and McDonald are already acquainted, given they own nearby properties in rural Queensland.
Unfortunately it would appear that he hasn’t been able to fill quite enough seats on his own, which explains why the Western Australian Chamber of Minerals and Energy sent an email on Friday beseeching its mailing list with invitations.
Sounds like a last minute push to tart up the numbers, given the event is just days away.
In vino veritas
Another wee splash of detail on software company WithWine, the vino venture started by Richard Owens, grandson of Macquarie Bank founder Stan Owens. Earlier this week Margin Call reported on some capital-raising troubles and a need for “alternative funding sources” at the business, which connects wineries with lovers of red and white. Apparently all is not well with the software; as reported, some high-profile clients recently dropped the service.
Owens embarked on the capital raising in May in the US, and that was without a great deal of success. Margin Call understands that he returned from overseas and proceeded to lay off more than a dozen people to try conserve capital.
Among the departed were Ben Copeman-Hill, chief operating officer, who updated his LinkedIn profile this month to reflect his exit. Bug testers, app developers and account managers are among the others apparently let go.
Aggravating matters, we’re told, is that Owens uploaded a photograph of himself on LinkedIn two weeks later – on a day when some were leaving the business – gushing about his presence in Rioja, Spain, for an annual event called World’s Best Vineyards.
The timing was hardly capital, and we can only assume the business picked up the tab, too.
Pherous flush
Brisbane millionaire Jamie Pherous, founder of Corporate Travel Management, is certainly cashing in after striking a two-year deal with the British Foreign Office. He’s housing refugees on a barge, the Bibby Stockholm, in Portland, Dorset, in a deal that’s clearly boosted CTM’s earnings. Meanwhile, the UK press has branded the barge a potential “floating Grenfell”, among other concerns.
But back to the cash. The board decided to declare a 22c unfranked final dividend, in addition to the 6c paid at the half. At 28c-a-share in total, and with 17.5 million shares in the bag, that’s funnelled $4.9m into Pherous’s personal coffers, his stake in the company worth about $327m.
Let’s not forget his salary as MD, too. Granted, it’s less than his senior executive team. In 2023 he took home $1.03m.
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