Maqcquarie, President Mayne, premier media awards, defending retail pay
July 28, 2008
Here are Stephen Mayne's four stories from the Crikey edition on Friday, 25 November, 2005.
2. Macquarie Bank's perception problem with News Limited
By Stephen Mayne, not-so-proud owner of 12 Macquarie Bank shares
Macquarie Bank have copped it in the neck from the Federal Government and missed out on the T3 gravy train – although not that much has changed as they also failed to secure a major role in either T1 or T2.
It seems having retainers like Warwick Smith, to Alan Stockdale, Max Moore-Wilton, Paul McClintock and even Ross Cameron on side wasn't enough to save the day for The Millionaires Factory.
The Australian continues to be a major thorn in the side of Macquarie, which must surely now be regretting suing Rupert's empire over Michael West's coverage of the Allstate Mining saga in Tasmania – a story which is up for a Walkley next Thursday night.
The Australian broke the story about Macquarie being dumped from an advisory role for a new Defence headquarters after confidentiality requirements were breached. And this morning Rupert's national broadsheet has rubbed salt into the wounds by putting the story of the T3 snub on page one.
Given the arguably excessive reaction from the government against the public servant who allegedly leaked an embarrassing story to Herald Sun reporters Gerard McManus and Michael Harvey – who still could face jail for refusing to disclose their source – the government would have faced accusations of hypocrisy if they hadn't taken the Macquarie confidentiality breach with the utmost seriousness.
The AFR's Chanticleer columnist has played down the breach as "one errant email" by one of the bank's 7,125 staff, who is apparently now suspended. But the reputational hit is substantial.
Combine that with The Australian's powerful campaign against Macquarie's much-loved public-private partnerships and we've got a very interesting example of Murdoch muscle at work.
NSW Premier Morris Iemma appears to be backing away from PPPs at a rapid rate – for which the Murdoch press can take some of the credit – along with the Lane Cove tunnel collapse and Cross-City Tunnel fiasco.
And with the likes of Future Fund chairman David Murray joining the ranks of PPP critics yesterday, Macquarie's salad days of sucking on the public teat appear to be coming to an end.
8. After 27 straight losses, Stephen Mayne is now "Mr President"
By Stephen Mayne
Not since reaching the summit as President of the 12 member Doncaster Chess Club in 1988 has Crikey managed to crack a board – until last night. Yes, with no-one else prepared to take on the job, I volunteered to become President of our local kindergarten. There were no objections and no alternative candidates, so a losing streak of 27 has finally been broken.
Mrs Crikey has retained her post as vice-president, so our husband and wife team have stitched up the top two posts on the management committee, which hopefully won't become too factionalised with three couples nominally having the numbers.
Turnover at pre-school committees is always an issue and there were only two members of the ten-person committee who are staying on in 2006, although the shop is in good shape after declaring a $25,000 surplus for 2005.
To celebrate the end of a five year losing streak, let's details all of those 27 losses in chronological order, with the two unopposed victories as nice little book-ends at the start and finish:
January 1988: elected President Doncaster Chess Club
December 1999: by-election for Kennett's seat of Burwood, 6.7% to finish 3rd out of 5 (beat the Green)
May 2000: AMP, last with 33.89%
October 23, 2000: ASX, last with 13.52%
October 26, 2000: Commonwealth Bank, last with 39.71%
November 2, 2000: WA News, last with 28.41%
November 9, 2000: Westfield Holdings, last with 0.37%
November 20, 2000: Telstra, 7th out of 9 with 5 incumbents re-elected
November 2000: Woolworths, 54.74% of proxies but defeated on show of hands
November 29, 2000: NRMA Insurance, 45.59%
December 11, 2000: David Jones, last with 11.46%
December 14, 2000: NAB, last with 9.14%
February 2001: Axa Asia Pacific, just 1.1%
July 2001: Melbourne Lord Mayor, 13th out of 19
October 29, 2001: ASX, last with 10.69%
November 1, 2001: Southern Cross Broadcasting, last with 3.85%
November 7, 2001: John Fairfax , last with 20.58%
November 16, 2001: Telstra, last with 4.76% out of 11 with 5 incumbents re-elected
November 27, 2001: PMP, last with 11.24%, other challenger got 15.62%
June 2002: Melbourne Press Club, 17th and last
October 2, 2002: Copyright Agency Ltd, third out of four with top two elected
October 9, 2002: News Corp , last with 12.89% but line-ball from the floor
October 2002: RACV, 4th of 5 with 2 incumbents re-elected
October 29, 2002: ASX, last with 18.7%
May 2003: AMP, last with very disappointing 11.41% which prompts two year retirement
October 14, 2005: RACV, last out of 4 (couldn't even beat Mrs Crikey)
October 27, 2005: Gunns, last with 14.7%
November 18, 2005: John Fairfax, last with 7.85%
November 24, 2005: elected President of local kindergarten unopposed.
21. Just what are the premier media awards?
By Stephen Mayne
I'm confused. Last week the Herald Sun declared that after one function inside The Advertiser building in Adelaide, the News Ltd only News Awards had already surpassed the Walkleys as "Australia's premier media awards."
Then this morning the paper had a strong package attacking the new sedition laws which pointed out that Ian McPhedran's 1999 story on the noisy Collin's Class subs had won "Australia's most prestigious journalism award." That would be the best news report at the Walkleys.
Maybe the Walkleys were the most prestigious awards six years ago, but 50 years of tradition, this year's huge venue of Luna Park in Sydney and national coverage on SBS has been surpassed by the tiny inaugural News Awards on the fourth floor of the newly opened Keith Murdoch House.
Mark Day may be a Murdoch loyalist, but he's not nearly as churlish or irrational as Herald Sun editor Peter Blunden who must surely be regretting his laughable claim. Day wrote a perfectly sensible column about journalism awards last week, pushing a line of "the more the merrier." Indeed.
The likelihood of Rupert returning to Adelaide every year to present the News Awards is a tremendous gesture. He seemed genuinely moved by the experience the next morning at the shareholder information meeting when he opened proceedings as follows:
I'd like to open with a slight anecdote. Perhaps it is a bit emotional, but last night for the first time we had awards for all our best and finest and most innovative professional journalists. We have 3000 journalists in Australia and we had the best of them here last night in this room for dinner for nearly 300 people. We displayed some of their work and the judging and then we gave away, I think, about 14 awards.
It was a very, very moving experience, for every body here. To get the sense of, first of all the team spirit throughout Australia and in the whole company, but also to to see the role that our journalists are playing in this very important society It was quite inspiring for all of those here and I'm sorry that you couldn't have all been here too because no one went away unimpressed or unhappy or without a great deal of pride.
Have a listen for yourself here. The idea of the world's most powerful media mogul feting his Australian journalists each year is unquestionably a good thing. It just shouldn't be misrepresented.
28. In defence of big retail pay packets
By Stephen Mayne
Crikey yesterday published a strong attack by Adam Schwab on Dawn Robertson's $2.68 million salary in 2004-05 when Myer reported a 46% drop in earnings to $39 million for the year. Fair enough, although Coles Myer does need some management stability as it offloads the struggling department store chain.
The contrast with the 19% increase in EBIT by David Jones to $78 million was stark indeed, but should the DJs boss potentially earn even more than Coles Myer CEO John Fletcher over the next three years?
McInnes saw his pay packet soar from $1.8 million in 2003-04 to $3 million last year and, as this SMH piece explains, he's been tied up until 2008 on a very rewarding contract that could easily deliver $5 million a year.
However, don't expect the DJs remuneration report or the four specific resolutions on McInnes and finance director Stephen Goddard to be voted down at the AGM on December 2.
You see, there is currently a lot of private equity money sloshing about desperately looking for capable retail executives. With a long line of suitors lining up to take on Myer, McInnes and his finance director Stephen Goddard would be hot property for every syndicate.
David Jones was absolutely right to lock in their two gun executives on generous and long term deals. If they walked, shares in DJs would tank when they've delivered outstanding share price performance to get the stock up from $1.10 in June 2003 to $2.42 this morning. Check out the David Jones annual report and notice of meeting for yourself here.
You only have to look at the big price of $212 million that two private equity firms paid for the struggling discount variety chains run by Miller's Retail and The Warehouse Group yesterday to get a sense of the wall of money that needs to be married with executive talent.
In this case it is former hardware chain builder and current Warehouse Group CEO Ian Tsicalas who will run the combined operation with a big equity play. He'll no doubt be hoping he can match the rumoured $14 million that former Mayne hospitals boss Robert Cooke took out of the private equity ownership of that business before it eventually passed to Ramsay Healthcare.
The same goes for Just Group CEO Howard McDonald, JB Hi Fi's Richard Uechtritz and Pacific Brands boss Paul Moore, although all three have stuck around to build on their private equity riches after their businesses were floated.
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