Activist chases the Mayne chance

In the space of three weeks, shareholder activist Stephen Mayne has been labelled "offensive'' by Kerry Packer, exasperated Frank Lowy and been fobbed off by Telstra's Bob Mansfield. Laying claims to being instrumental in bringing down the Kennett government, Mayne is now fighting corporate Australia in the name of "corporate democracy'' at this year's round of annual general meetings.

And while he claims his motives are pure, Mayne's ego-driven ambition and tactics have raised questions about whether his very public battles are more about driving his commercial venture, Crikey.com.au, than batting for the little guy.

"At the end of the day, it's all about promoting his own business,'' says a company director who wishes to remain anonymous. "Unlike the Australian Shareholders Association, his activism is profit driven,'' the director says.

Whatever the truth is, there is certainly nothing usual about the 195cm tall Mayne. The 31-year-old middle-class Melburnian has been creating something of a legend in political and business circles since his ill-fated attempt to stand against Jeff Kennett in the 1999 Victorian election.

Depending on whom you speak to, Mayne is either admired or reviled. A self-aggrandising egomaniac or an intelligent, opinionated larrikin inspired by principle. In his own words he is a good-cause activist, a competition zealot and is passionate about pushing aside the bulldust that gets passed around by politicians and companies at the expense of the little guy.

There is, however, no doubt Mayne has a finely honed skill as a self-promoter.

"I contributed to Optus dropping their cash-for-comment deal with Alan Jones. I stood for their board and two weeks later they withdrew their contract with Alan Jones,'' Mayne says.

"AMP, I nominated for their board and within a week their chairman and four other directors had resigned. I don't think I was a big factor but I was a contributing factor to their thinking.

"Steve Vizard is a classic case. He resigned from the Telstra board within two weeks of my nomination for their board on an anti-Steve Vizard ticket,'' he says.

Deluded? Perhaps. But there is no doubt that Mayne is having some kind of impact on what he describes as the phenomenon of shareholder democracy that has broken out for the first time at this year's AGM season.

Having flown back and forth across the country to attend more than 200 AGMs during the past two years, Mayne is now soliciting a surprising amount of shareholder support. He has taken on some of the country's richest and most powerful people and in doing so has created enormous amounts of publicity. There are indications that corporations are taking notice.

In a first for an Australian public company, Seven network executive chairman Kerry Stokes yesterday invited shareholders to stay for the post-AGM media conference, to listen to the questions asked by journalists.

The move was designed to improve transparency and was clearly welcomed by the media and shareholders alike. Despite gestures like this, Mayne still has some battles on his hands.

Early this month, Mayne attended Kerry Packer's Publishing & Broadcasting AGM and clearly frustrated Packer snr with his line of questioning.

"Do you basically set out to be offensive, or is it just natural?'' Mr Packer barked.

After no response, Packer demanded, "I'm waiting for an answer.''

Mayne was silent.

There was also the time a shareholder took to the floor at Westfield Holdings' AGM and launched an attack.

"Is this just an ego trip for you?'' the shareholder demanded. ``You describe the shareholders who turn up to annual general meetings as old farts ... I'm surprised that someone who wished to be on this board would describe the people to whom he would be responsible as old farts,'' he said.

Still, his nominations this year have garnered spectacular support, gaining 40 per cent of the vote at the Commonwealth Bank, 28 per cent of the vote at AMP and his candidate Ray Proudley picked up 58 per cent of the vote at AGL.

The idea is not to be elected but to use the nomination as a platform to raise items that Mayne believes need to be addressed.

"I don't want to get on a board. It would be very constricting,'' Mayne says. "What I would probably do if I was elected anywhere would be to extract some change in the company at board level and make my departure conditional on that.''

But there are those far more sceptical of his motives. After nominating for the Westfield Holdings board this month, Mayne told shareholders at the AGM that he did not want to be elected and it would be against shareholders' interests to elect him. In the end he received just 0.4 per cent of the vote.

"It was an abuse of due process,'' Westfield spokesman Mark Ryan says. "He takes up a lot of time asking lots of questions he's asked before in a detailed briefing he's had with the company.''

His business Crikey.com.au is a mainly subscription-free website hosting a mix of opinionated rants and articles on politics, the media and business. It acts as a traffic generator for his subscription-based internet business, Shareowner.com.

Crikey claims to have about 600 subscribers and makes about $500 a week. Crikey is financed out of his own pocket and Mayne has just $20,000 left from a peak of $160,000. He is supported by his barrister wife, Paula, who was "very understanding'' when Mayne's investment advice turned sour and he lost her $10,000 in the tech crash in April.

Started on Valentine's Day this year, Crikey followed on from Mayne's Jeffed.com, a site where he published an 18,000-word attack on the media and life in Victoria under the Kennett government, just two weeks before the election.

Jeffed was spawned after Mayne's own attempts to run in the seat of Burwood against Kennett were destroyed when the Electoral Commission rejected his nomination because he was not enrolled on the Victorian electoral roll.

Jeffed was, he says, the most important thing he has done.

"It contributed to a change of government.''

Mayne has clearly burnt bridges along the way.

"The Col Allan line is very amusing,'' Mayne says, referring to his former editor at Sydney's Daily Telegraph newspaper.

'Someone once said to him, 'Stephen Mayne's a bit of a bridge burner isn't he?' `Bridge burner! He's a f—ing pyromaniac','' Mayne says.

Mayne, once described by former Victorian treasurer Alan Stockdale as a "grievous loss'' after he resigned from his position with the Victorian government, has seen his employment prospects have take a dive. And while he admits he needs to work on rebuilding people's trust, Mayne will be far too busy to be knocking on too many doors.

With more political elections next year than any year since the war, Mayne is considering having another run at politics and may even launch his own party modelled on the Association of Consumers and Tax Payers in New Zealand.

"I think that putting a bit of pressure on the democrats is very important. I think Australia lacks a right-leaning marginal party. The Greens and the Democrats are left of centre,'' he says.

"I think there's a genuine mass market interest in accountability and corporate performance and I'm not sure that politicians have yet cottoned on to the constituency they've created through mass share ownership.''

There are also ambitions to build his own funds management business based on activism, like the Hermes funds in the UK.

"People can choose not to believe me but I am genuinely driven by what I think is in the public interest and what I genuinely believe – that Australia needs a culture of shareholder pressure,'' Mayne says.

Copyright © 2022 The Mayne Report. All rights reserved

• share
  Share
  • 
    Facebook
  • 
    Twitter
  • email
    Email
  • print
    Print
  • link
    Copy Link
  • cancel
    Cancel