Wilson HTM plans spin-off but will retain listed fund

While the corporate undertakers pick over the entrails of BBY, plans are quietly emerging from Wilson HTM for the spin-off of its securities business.

Wilson boss Sandy Grant is to be left with a listed fundie boasting $15 billion under management, but for the privilege is giving staff a
$1 million interest-free loan towards the $2 million cost of buying themselves out.

If the brokers do everything right under the direction of boss Brad Gale, in the two years following the spin-off they won’t have to pay any of the loan back.

For its part, Wilson will get
$5 million for the business, plus half of the broker’s profits above $3 million each year for two years, capped at $1 million a year.

The broker will be 40 per cent owned by staff, 40 per cent by Kiwi broker Craigs and 20 per cent by Deutsche Bank.

The Germans already have just under 20 per cent of the listed Wilsons, but we don’t know if they will hang around once the spin-off is done.

The deal will require shareholder approval in late June, with an independent expert’s report and notice of meeting coming in days.

Beyond the amicable corporate divorce, insiders predict there will be some rationalisation of costs at the left-behind fundie, including a possible change in offices, but there is believed to be no plan (for now) to delist Wilson.

Bye bye BBY

For the keen observer there might have been telltale signs that things were going off the rails in the BBY bunker in the days leading up to the broker’s collapse on Monday.

Dwindling supplies of milk for tea and coffee and only light beer left in the staff fridge, unemptied rubbish bins and mounting bills for obligatory platters of sandwiches might have indicated trouble in paradise.

But some things are sacred, even in broking, and Margin Call has been assured that despite the inability of boss Glenn Rosewall, son of Aussie tennis great Ken, to pull off a last-minute deal to save his shop, every scrap of Rosewall tennis memorabilia remains in place in the broker’s office. At least there’s something left for unpaid staff to pinch.

Sadly, one thing missing is BBY’s daily note to clients, “Advantage Receiver”.

The walls of power

He’s the head of research with no analysts in earshot — but at least he can get a cup of coffee.

UBS head of research Chris Williams doesn’t sit with his team, the Swiss bank has confessed to a NSW parliamentary inquiry.

While his minion analysts sit locked in a special office inside the Chinese walls, where investment bankers can’t venture, Williams sits outside the exclusion zone in a tiny office next to the in-house barista.

This is because of a highly unusual arrangement, where Williams uncomfortably straddles the great wall because he is also co-head of equities.

The heavy workload — and the distracting aroma of arabica — may explain why Williams only read a dynamite note on electricity privatisation after it was released.

The inquiry is into whether changes to the note in the run-up to the recent state election were urged by Premier Mike Baird.

Mac takes stock

It’s unlikely to be a love-in when Macquarie Private Wealth amasses its portfolio of stockbrokers from around Australia at Randwick Racecourse next week to unveil the new Macquarie Way.

Speculation about the conference is intense following the departure this week of Victorian head Mal Cameron, who is understood to have left considerable coin on the table in the shape of a swag of options set to vest on July 1.

Talk is that the agenda will outline major changes. An early proposal had been to cut options trading for private clients altogether, while advisers generating less than $300,000-a-year were to be put on a salary.

The changes, which remain a work-in-progress, are all said to be part of a slow and deliberate tightening of the screws in the way the business operates in the wake of its enforceable undertaking.

Woolies boss shelved

It’s been all about Woolies boss Grant O’Brien down at the Victorian Supreme Court this week, which has been hearing all about the shenanigans that went on a few years back when the head grocer was in charge of setting up ill-fated hardware chain Masters.

Even so, he hasn’t been attending court and won’t be called as a witness to explain emails sent to a hardware store owner masquerading as a dog.

He’s instead been ensconced in Woolies vast Sydney HQ at Bella Vista, halfway to Brisbane.

Perhaps he’s barricaded against insto investors angsty over the Masters disaster, which crippled Woolies’ share price.

As a Woolies shareholder O’Brien is feeling the pain of a 27 per cent share price tumble over the past year that has carved about $1.2m from his paper wealth, and he’s also likely to miss out on bonus shares worth about $920,000 after failing to hit long-term targets.

More airline food

It was out with the old and in with the new at Virgin Australia last night as the board gathered at Luke Mangan’s fancy Glass Restaurant at Sydney’s Hilton Hotel to farewell outgoing chair Neil Chatfield and welcome his replacement, Elizabeth Bryan. Mangan is Virgin’s resident in-house chef and Glass is favoured by CEO John Borghetti.

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