Whisky lunch still a go-go for Lindsay Fox

Cartoon: Rod Clement

It’s become an annual tradition for logistics billionaire Lindsay Fox to celebrate his birthday with a whisky lunch attended by 100 of his best mates.

The venue changes each year — last year it was at Melbourne’s storied Flemington racecourse.

This year the trucking magnate didn’t let the coronavirus pandemic stop him from continuing the tradition.

It was his 83rd milestone.

Given that one of the regular attendees is Victorian Premier Daniel Andrews, the Fox family made sure the party complied with Victoria’s strict anti-party and social distancing laws.

So on Friday afternoon Eddie McGuire was the master of ­ceremonies for a virtual Fox whisky party hosted from the family’s Portsea family ­compound over the internet on Zoom.

McGuire led a whisky toast from the more than 100 virtual attendees — again including Premier Andrews, who took a brief break from his official ­duties — while Fox’s sons — Peter, Andrew and David — didn’t let the ongoing discussions over the carve-up of the family fortune get in the way of each making glowing speeches for the man they all call Dad.

Fox’s response speech, in the words of one attendee, reportedly focused on three traits that have always been dear to the family patriarch: “Friendship, family and support for one another.”

The only absentee from the affair — as she is every year, given she’s no fan of whisky parties — was Fox’s beloved wife of more than 50 years, Paula.

But Paula celebrated his ­actual birthday with him on Sunday.

Those who took time out to down a scotch or two in Fox’s honour in an all-male shindig included New York-based actor Hugh Jackman.

There were local retail magnates Solomon Lew, John Gandel and Marc Besen (who is now 10 years Fox’s senior), plus property king Max Beck, and the Crown founder-turned racing legend Lloyd Williams.

Zooming in also were the new Westpac chairman John Macfarlane, retiring PwC boss Luke Sayers, Seek chief Andrew Bassat, AMA boss Michael Gannon and veteran stockbroker John McIntosh.

Glencore’s drama

There’s been high drama in Zambia between Ivan Glasenberg’s Glencore and the government.

Their mine boss Nathan Bullock, who heads the Mopani Copper mine, was detained at the Kenneth Kaunda International Airport as he attempted to fly home late last week to his quarantined family in Australia.

Bullock, who has only been in the top job for six months having previously been at Olympic Dam, South Australia, had flown internally from Copperbelt, a 45-minute flight, to KKIA, with the intention to head back home.

He was detained because the government was unhappy with Mopani’s decision to close shafts due to falling metal prices, disrupted logistics along with restrictions related to the coronavirus pandemic.

Glencore pressed ahead in defiance of the government to place two mines on care and maintenance, although committing to pay the workers their salaries for the initial three months, but not the employees of the contractors. It seems the contractors are “big guys” in the Patriotic Front party, one mining blog suggested. Its president, Edgar Lungu, struggles to service its debt.

Glencore, which has invested more than $4bn in the country, won’t comment on the whereabouts of key executives.

Glasenberg, who has held citizenship of South Africa and Australia, became a Swiss citizen in 2011.

VRC whips cracking

The board of the Victoria Racing Club meets on Friday, with the irreconcilable differences of chairman Amanda Elliott with disgruntled directors, vice-chairman John O’Rourke and Peter Fekete, now a chapter all but closed. The pair, whose resignations were tabled at a meeting in late February, had dared challenge her governance.

They are gone, along with another director, Elisa Robinson, who had only been re-elected in December.

So there are three seats to fill but no election given they are midterm vacancies.

The board currently consists of Elliott, Michael Ramsden, Katherine Bourke, Neil Werrett, Sophie Cornell and Glenn Carmody, the treasurer.

These remaining board of directors looked at a Melbourne Cup field of candidates who could join the boardroom, which dates back to the 1860s.

PR maven Ann Peacock, with a pedigree entrenched in racing being by the colt from Kooyong Andrew Peacock and a daughter of Lady Susan (Rossiter, Peacock, Sangster) Renouf would surely be on their wish list.

Maybe even Eddie McGuire could find the time?

The trouble began when Elliott, on approaching 68 years in December, hit the constitution’s age limit. But she was keen to stay, even more so given stability and continuity is crucial during the COVID-19 situation.

Crown Hotel’s chief operating officer, Peter Crinis, who hasn’t yet secured an exit, has been mooted as successor to Neil Wilson, the current VRC chief executive, with Wilson all set to then become the next chairman whenever it happens.

All quiet at TigerLily

More than 20 buyer inquiries were lodged when the TigerLily administrators closed off expressions of interest earlier this month. No word yet on the progression of these offers.

The creditors are likely to be briefed at the second meeting of creditors on Friday.

They have been advised there was some $4.67m of inventory left, plus $870,000 cash in the bank.

However, $24.9m is owed to Crescent Capital, the private equity firm that bought the company from Billabong for $60m in 2017, although it’s not due for repayment until 2024.

TigerLily continues to see strong online sales, having closed all its stores under government regulation. An initial 10 were shut when the retailer went into administration in March with 77 staff, some 31 at head office, of whom eight have been made redundant.

Meanwhile, fashion entrepreneur Jodhi Meares, the ex-wife of James Packer, has yet to say anything formally after her former TigerLily label fell into administration.

But her 30,000 Instagram followers regularly see her thoughts from isolation.

A recent post was “The rule of life. Let it happen.” There was also “be easy. take your time. you are coming home. to yourself”. Another from novelist Franz Kafka, who wrote: “You do not need to leave your room.”

These days the former model, who recently turned 39, spends her time mostly between Hawaii, New York and the $2.75m cute fisherman’s cottage in Watsons Bay, which is her Sydney base.

She was spotted in New York at Christmas, attending a dinner party hosted by Hugh Jackman and wife Deborra Lee-Furness with Prison Break actor Dominic Purcell.

She set up TigerLily in 2000 when she was married to the billionaire casino mogul between 1999 to 2002.

She sold the bikini label to surfer chain Billabong in 2007.

They sold it for $60m in 2017 to Crescent Capital Partners, who first approached Korda Mentha in late January to work out the fate of the fashion label, which was in a state of upheaval when both chief executive Chris Buchanan and chief financial officer Steven Hill departed in early February.

Meares carries on with her own business, The Upside, which was founded in 2014.

Virus tweet scrubbed

For just a few minutes there was hope in the twittersphere of a miracle COVID-19 hand sanitiser.

But the Holista CollTech wellness company subsequently advised the ASX that a key word had been missing from their PR’s misleading tweet.

Holista had announced that a plant-based ingredient in its hand sanitiser had been “tested by a UK bio-safety laboratory to be more than 99.99 per cent effective against the feline coronavirus, a surrogate of the COVID-19 novel coronavirus”.

But their newly appointed media and investor relations consultant, Julia Maguire at Sydney-based The Capital Network, tweeted with the key word “surrogate” missing, which resulted in a misleading statement.

While maintaining the sanitiser kills a broad spectrum of microbes, the Subiaco company said it “retracts all statements made by Ms Maguire in the Twitter post and investors should not rely on the retracted information for their investment decision”. There was a two-hour pause in trading.

Ms Maguire’s tweet was deleted, advised Dr Rajen Manika, managing director of the natural wellness company that makes healthy foods including low-GI baked products, reduced-sodium salts, low-fat fried foods and low-calorie sugar. All apparently without compromising taste, odour and mouthfeel.