If you are seeking evidence of the existence of a parallel universe, look no further than the operations of the Pauline Vamos-chaired Governance Institute of Australia.
The institute is all about “strengthening society through governance excellence”.
Its purpose is to champion “whole of organisation governance and risk management through education, advocacy and engagement with members and the broader community”.
Sounds lofty enough.
So to which organisation would the institute turn when looking to double its complement of “brand ambassadors” who will take the message of good governance and strong risk management to the masses?
PwC Australia.
Who else but the tax scandal-ridden corporate services giant, which is in the crosshairs of the government and every relevant (and irrelevant) regulator.
Congrats then to PwC’s senior manager, risk transformation Kirsty Wright, who we are not suggesting played any role in the firm’s tax scandal, but just flies the flag for the most sullied corporate of the year.
Wright is now one of the institute’s four brand ambassadors, also including Zip Co and HBF Health chair Diane Smith-Gander, who champion the institute’s values of integrity, courage, service excellence and collaboration.
Perhaps Wright’s first outing in her new role should be made in-house at PwC.
Bubs shares tank
If chair Katrina Rathie’s refreshed strategy for Bubs is so good, then why did shares in the goat-milk infant formula maker tank 13 per cent on Thursday after she narrowly survived a board spill?
After all, investors normally embrace certainty. But instead of lapping up the first-time ASX-listed chair’s every word, they dumped the stock like sour milk down the sink.
The answer may be in the stellar run-up Bubs had before the spill. About 12 per cent of the company’s stock was traded in the past few weeks before the meeting, held at the Radisson Blu Plaza Hotel in Sydney – a long way from Bubs’ Dandenong HQ but close to Rathie’s own Styne Park-facing Double Bay base.
Rathie and her fellow directors survived with 62 per cent of the shareholder vote. Every vote counted.
If they didn’t have the support of Bubs’s biggest shareholder, Alibaba-backed private equity outfit C2 Capital – which has a 10 per cent stake – it would have been a 50/50 split and Rathie may have found herself brushing up her CV, which also includes the very public furore that engulfed Sydney’s Cranbrook School council. We won’t go into that now.
What we do know is team Rathie went all out when Bubs’s founder and its departed chief executive Kristy Carr and former executive chairman Dennis Lin requisitioned the extraordinary general meeting.
The money Bubs’s board spent on advisers was enough to prompt the company’s second biggest shareholder and Chemist Warehouse billionaire Jack Gance to blow a head gasket.
“Why would you spend millions of dollars fighting this? Why would you spend so much money? I believe it was $5m. Was this the amount that was spent?” Gance bellowed.
Rathie replied she was “not sure”. “What are you referring to?”
“The money that was spent on the campaign,” Gance replied. “The dismissal of Dennis and Kristy was terrible.”
At last count, Rathie – who herself was a long-time legal adviser to Carr and Lin before she was invited to join the board – had engaged two PR firms, corporate undertaker McGrathNicol and everyone’s favourite agribusiness deal-maker, David Williams.
Perhaps that’s why one of Rathie’s PR minders objected to one of our photographers taking a picture of her and Williams ahead of the meeting?
Rather they wanted their own shot from their snapper of the board showing a united front.
While advisers don’t come cheap, Rathie sought to assure Gance that the company got value for money.
“The meeting was requisitioned and we had the responsibility to respond. I do not know the precise figure involved, but I can assure you it’s certainly not in the millions of dollars,” she said.
No time (or money) to waste, then, on celebratory drinks on Sydney Harbour post meeting.
Rathie and her fellow directors will now have to roll up their sleeves and turn the company around.
After all, she could find herself facing another spill – and writing more cheques – if little progress has been made by the company’s annual meeting, which is normally held in November.
Fire sale
As the Matildas continue their FIFA Women’s World Cup campaign on home soil, the team’s injured captain and national treasure Sam Kerr is sitting injured on the sidelines.
Over in Western Australia, the Kerr family has been able to finally bring an end to a sad chapter of its recent history.
In May this year, Kerr’s former AFL footballer brother Daniel Kerr, a 220-game premiership player for the West Coast Eagles, was sentenced to two years in jail after admitting to setting his parents’ Kardinya house on fire in February 2021. His sentence was backdated, with Kerr, who has struggled with drugs, alcohol and his mental health, having already served his time.
The fire at the Exley Close home caused nearly $250,000 of damage. Parents Roger and Roxanne Kerr have managed to sell the site on which their home stood, which earlier this year they subdivided into two blocks. They have offloaded one half of their former residential block for $420,000 and the other side for $440,000.
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