Brian Healey dodges a spray at Incitec Pivot
By Stephen Mayne
January 7, 2008
This is from the Mayne Report subscriber-only edition of December 24.
As we told you earlier this week, Brian Healey has been the chairman of Centro Properties Group since 1993. He really should take a lot of responsibility for last week's debacle, but so far has barely been mentioned in the press.
Brian is a very busy 73-year-old because he didn't show up at last Thursday's Incitec Pivot AGM, where he is the deputy chairman. Incitec Pivot refused to let visitors into the meeting, but my audio guy managed to capture this spray calling for Brian's swift resignation from the toilets beneath the AGM at the Melbourne Exhibition Centre.
Michael West covered the comments in The Australian on Friday, although Healey wasn't actually at the meeting as he reported.
The contrast between the performance of Centro and Incitec Pivot is stark indeed, with Centro shares falling from $10 to $1.10 over the past six months, whilst Incitec Pivot has soared from $35 to $116.
We've made a video on this point to stress that Incitec Pivot's great performance shouldn't save Healey because Centro failed so fundamentally in its debt disclosure and properly informing investors is something any chairman should ensure gets done.
We should all keep a close eye on the movements of the Centro board because the Melbourne business establishment, far more so than other cities, has a habit of tolerating directors who have failed miserably in other places. Surely the destruction of $5 billion in one week at Centro is grounds for swift retirements from a range of boards.
Brian should have led by example and quit Incitec Pivot at last Thursday's AGM. It was a missed opportunity.
He's clearly been a busy boy because Centro has today announced the appointment of Lazard Carnegie Wylie, KPMG and Freehills to advise it through the present maelstrom. John Wylie teamed up with KPMG and Freehills to secure $30 billion for Victoria from energy privatisation in the 1990s and Centro shareholders will be hoping they can repeat that performance flogging its $26.6 billion shopping centre portfolio.
The changes in shareholding notices are starting to flow through and it is interesting to see that Barclays has already dropped from 9.32% of Centro Properties Group to 6.83%, CBA has reduced from 11% to 10%, but UBS Nominees has gone the other way on behalf of some mystery party by lifting its holding from 5.1% to $8.63%, which is presumably some hedge fund or corporate client doing a spot of bottom fishing.
There have been no notices from the more secure Centro Retail Trust which recovered 7c to $1.07 today - not too far shy of the $1.42 before the debt rollover problems were first revealed last Monday.
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