Tilley, Xenophon and Rio takeover conditions
February 18, 2010
Dear Mayne Reporters,
Firstly, if you're near a radio, check out Radio National's All In The Mind program from 1pm to hear an interesting and well edited pub debate I had about the mind and the markets with US Skeptics founder, Michael Shermer, last Monday night.
With the earnings season drawing to a close, there is a pile of interesting developments to watch this week. Gunns and ABC Learning remain suspended as they finalise emergency write-downs and capital raisings and this morning Mike Tilley quit Challenger Financial Group after it reported a $44 million loss.
The fall of the financial engineering houses has now generated the following executive departures:
Phil Green and Jim Babcock: ousted as executives of Babcock & Brown but still hanging around as non exucutive like a bad smell, supposedly because they are large shareholders with great global relationships.
Mike Tilley: quite as CEO of Challenger Financial Services after 4 years and more than $20 million in payments.
Andrew Scott: resigned as CEO of Centro with a guaranteed $3 million payout within weeks of its shares collapsing.
Michael King: quit as CEO of MFS in January just two days after the shares were slaughtered and suspended.
David Coe: resigned as executive chairman of Allco but remains on other boards within the group and is still working as an executive out of its London office.
Martin Kemp: punted as an executive director of ABC Learning but somehow Eddie Groves is still hanging on as CEO.
Bizarre moves from ACCC and Swan over Rio takeover bid
Wayne Swan's approval of China's stake in Rio Tinto PLC rising to 14.9% was a bizarre exercise. For starters, the FIRB shouldn't have any influence over London-listed shares because the Chinese haven't bought any of the Australian listed shares in the dual listed company.
Swan's press release came out just hours before the Closing Ceremony at the Olympics and took 5 months after the original Chinalco raid in March. It also seemed strange that the ACCC asked for more time in this Friday afternoon press release, due to concern over the market strength of a combined Rio and BHP in the iron-ore business.
Swan's two conditions were that Chinalco seek further approval if it wants to go above 15% of Rio Tinto PLC and that it wouldn't seek Rio board representation unless it owned more than 15%.
So, the Australian government doesn't give a stuff that Rio Tinto is only 15% Australian owned, based in London and has only 2 Australian-based directors on its 15-man board, but it is seeking to block Rio's largest shareholder from having a board seat.
Why doesn't Swan simply come out and require Rio Tinto to be based in Australia and have a majority of Australian-based directors and equity, like the government does with other icons such as Qantas.
Xenophon's big spray at the pokies industry
Nick Xenophon gave the pokies industry this huge spray at their annual conference yesterday. Check out The Australian's strong coverage today as the pressure cranks up on the ALP and its affiliated unions to ditch their venues which house several hundred poker machines.
That's all for now.
Do ya best, Stephen Mayne
* The Mayne Report is a multi-media governance website published by Stephen Mayne with occasional email editions. To unsubscribe from the emails click here.
Firstly, if you're near a radio, check out Radio National's All In The Mind program from 1pm to hear an interesting and well edited pub debate I had about the mind and the markets with US Skeptics founder, Michael Shermer, last Monday night.
With the earnings season drawing to a close, there is a pile of interesting developments to watch this week. Gunns and ABC Learning remain suspended as they finalise emergency write-downs and capital raisings and this morning Mike Tilley quit Challenger Financial Group after it reported a $44 million loss.
The fall of the financial engineering houses has now generated the following executive departures:
Phil Green and Jim Babcock: ousted as executives of Babcock & Brown but still hanging around as non exucutive like a bad smell, supposedly because they are large shareholders with great global relationships.
Mike Tilley: quite as CEO of Challenger Financial Services after 4 years and more than $20 million in payments.
Andrew Scott: resigned as CEO of Centro with a guaranteed $3 million payout within weeks of its shares collapsing.
Michael King: quit as CEO of MFS in January just two days after the shares were slaughtered and suspended.
David Coe: resigned as executive chairman of Allco but remains on other boards within the group and is still working as an executive out of its London office.
Martin Kemp: punted as an executive director of ABC Learning but somehow Eddie Groves is still hanging on as CEO.
Bizarre moves from ACCC and Swan over Rio takeover bid
Wayne Swan's approval of China's stake in Rio Tinto PLC rising to 14.9% was a bizarre exercise. For starters, the FIRB shouldn't have any influence over London-listed shares because the Chinese haven't bought any of the Australian listed shares in the dual listed company.
Swan's press release came out just hours before the Closing Ceremony at the Olympics and took 5 months after the original Chinalco raid in March. It also seemed strange that the ACCC asked for more time in this Friday afternoon press release, due to concern over the market strength of a combined Rio and BHP in the iron-ore business.
Swan's two conditions were that Chinalco seek further approval if it wants to go above 15% of Rio Tinto PLC and that it wouldn't seek Rio board representation unless it owned more than 15%.
So, the Australian government doesn't give a stuff that Rio Tinto is only 15% Australian owned, based in London and has only 2 Australian-based directors on its 15-man board, but it is seeking to block Rio's largest shareholder from having a board seat.
Why doesn't Swan simply come out and require Rio Tinto to be based in Australia and have a majority of Australian-based directors and equity, like the government does with other icons such as Qantas.
Xenophon's big spray at the pokies industry
Nick Xenophon gave the pokies industry this huge spray at their annual conference yesterday. Check out The Australian's strong coverage today as the pressure cranks up on the ALP and its affiliated unions to ditch their venues which house several hundred poker machines.
That's all for now.
Do ya best, Stephen Mayne
* The Mayne Report is a multi-media governance website published by Stephen Mayne with occasional email editions. To unsubscribe from the emails click here.