Sol, Don Pay Heaps To Butter Up John

Sydney Morning Herald

Monday March 6, 2006

James Chessell

James Chessell, a marge man himself, is not that eager to grease the wheels of democracy.

THEY don't muck around at Team Telstra. While most companies were happy enough to send one senior representative along to John Howard's expensive Bleak City fundraiser on Friday night, the telecom had boss Sol Trujillo and chairchappy Don McGauchie doing their bit for democracy.

Telstra's relationship with the Feds has been patchy since Trujillo took the helm last July. So the $10,000-a-head dinner at Sir Sidney Myer's Toorak pile, Cranlana, seems an appropriate venue to show one's support for the present administration.

Especially with the company hurtling towards a $24 billion public issue next year. Handy, then, that Treasurer Peter Costello, Communications Minister Helen Coonan and Howard's chief of staff, Arthur Sinodinos, were also present.

The Cranlana gathering involved committed protesters outside (unlike its Sydney equivalent where the unions happily posed for the cameras but didn't bother hanging round for Howard to turn up). Inside, however, the mood was more convivial as the corporates assembled to toast the PM.

Among the happy throng were Cardboard King Dick Pratt and wife Jeanne, who were apparently not the least bit worried about the ACCC's price fixing case against the box industry. Speeches were given by Reserve Bank director Hugh Morgan, Costello and Murdoch in-law John Calvert-Jones, who doubles as the Liberal Party treasurer.

Hamilton Island owner Bob Oatley and son Sandy paid up. As did Oatley's good mate and Deutsche Bank chairman, Clive Smith. Allco Equity boss Peter Yates was also there despite blurting out his last dinner date with the PM in open court last year.

Qantas chair Margaret Jackson, NAB boss John Stewart, Macquarie Bank's ubiquitous Warwick Smith (a former Lib minister), Tabcorp chairman Michael Bennett Robinson, Resmed chief Peter Farrell, and Coles chair Rick Allert coughed up, along with Village Roadshow boss Graham Burke, whose company loves nothing more than transferring shareholder funds to the Liberal Party coffers. Rounding out the party were arty types Jean and Brian Sherman (of EquitiLink fame) and Baillieu and Sarah Myer.

Stoking the coffers

At Thursday's Sydney dinner at the Westin - the el cheapo leg of Festival Howard at only $2500 a table - the job of giving the vote of thanks went to Kerry Stokes. It was, by most accounts, a lengthy and sober allocution.

Seven's top banana is not mentioned when it comes to big Liberal Party donors such as Pratt or Westfield founder Frank Lowy.

But Stokes must have done something right to receive such an honour. Perhaps it is the generosity of his cronies, Ken Parker and Peter Gammell, who've served with various private companies associated with Stokes. Indeed, the pair has poured $921,000 into the Liberal coffers through two private companies, Jefferson Investments and Weebin, over the past seven fiscal years. This is considerably more than the $133,000 those reds at Labor bagged over the same period.

All into it

Howard wasn't the only one raising mega bucks late last week. Well almost. The National Party charged $2200 a table for a Friday dinner at Deloitte's offices to hear bush bolshie Senator Barnaby Joyce give the Sir Earle Page Memorial Lecture. About 50 turned up.

Then there is the state's wildly successful and charismatic premier, Morris Iemma, who fronted the Italian Chamber of Commerce at the Machiavelli ristorante for Friday lunch.

Anyway, your diarist's fascinating series on the new faces at Machiavelli finishes today. While the new Bulletin photos feature respected businessmen - how else to describe PBL boss John Alexander - the last batch were not so esteemed. There's Alan Bond, Rocket Rodney Adler, Abe Goldberg, the late Christopher Skase and Ray Williams.

New top gnome needed

There's no better place to store a secret than inside a merchant banker. But it's worth noting the future of UBS chairman Chris Mackay has become the subject of much chatter in recent weeks. Aside from reports Mackay will shortly join the board of PBL, he is also expected to scale back his responsibilities at UBS in the near future.

According to the scuttlebutt, Mackay will soon step down to an "advisory" role at the Swiss bank. Mackay (along with the likes of Caledonia's Mark Nelson) is a keen follower of US investment guru Warren Buffett. So it's a safe bet he might spend some of his new spare time wading in and out of the market. Mackay's private Magellan Equities holds a good chunk of the sleepy, listed investment concern New Privateer Holding.

UBS has flourished under Mackay and any changes will lead to inevitable speculation its days at the top of the heap (along with Macquarie) are under threat. But UBS's investment banking arm has been run by Matt Ground and Richard Hunt (who recently turned down a transfer to the UK) for three years now. Grounds, meanwhile, heads UBS's work on the Telstra float. So things should be OK.

McIntosh memories

There were a few sore heads down Melbourne way on Friday morning as former McIntosh Securities operatives tried to remember the night before. The erstwhile firm - a serious rival to JBWere during the '80s - had held a reunion based around those two tenets of broking: drinking and story telling.

The best tales were told by former boss John McIntosh, whose popularity may have been bolstered by paying for much of the booze.

There was a time before the 1987 crash when FAI had a big chunk of Pioneer Concrete stock. FAI boss Larry Adler (Rodney's father) wanted to sell and McIntosh eventually found a willing buyer in Robert Holmes a Court. The only problem, according to McIntosh, was that Holmes a Court was hard to deal with on the phone. He would sometimes pause for minutes on end. McIntosh eventually suggested Adler call Holmes a Court direct. Adler agreed but only at 7pm so he could watch the news during the breaks.

Then there's former Woolworths boss Paul Simons. McIntosh were handling the Woolies float - it relisted in 1993 - so John went round to see Simons. "I've never met such a good guy before," he told the gathering. But it became clear lavish hospitality was not part of the Woolies ethos when Simons offered McIntosh a cup of coffee.

McIntosh agreed, so Simons went over to an automatic machine outside his office, pushed a button and got him one. Sugar? McIntosh said yes and was duly presented with a couple of packets of Ansett sugar from the Simons top drawer. Needless to say, there were no spoons so Simons offered a pen. "That's why it's been such a good company," McIntosh concluded.

(Similar low-cost stories about present Woolies boss Roger Corbett abound; he's been known to serve instant coffee.)

McIntosh housed many familiar names before it was taken out by Merrill Lynch in 1998. Enjoying the reunion were Andrew Kroger, Greg "Cattledog" Burns, Leigh Short, who's suing Deutsche these days, John McGowan, Tom "Black Cat" Klinger, Bruce Parncutt, Bell Potter's Steve Rawlinson, fund manager Geoff Wilson and economist Saul Eslake.

Kiwi day

It was a totally choice Friday for Kiwi sports nuts, eh bro. And at a Trans-Tasman BusinessCircle lunch, Brian McKechnie, who faced Trevor's Chappell's infamous underarm delivery 25 years ago, even admitted the incident had done much to promote the sport.

For his part, Chappell said he didn't have many regrets either. "I thought it sounded like a pretty good idea," he told the gathering that included former Aussie keeper Greg Dyer who, we're told, works at Sydney Gas shareholder Mulpha.

McKechnie was also an All Black and spent his evening at an Odyssey House dinner at the Four Seasons. Old timers may recall McKechnie kicked the penalty goal that finished off Wales at Cardiff in 1978 after Andy Haden took "a dive" in the dying minutes. He shared the stage with a number of rugger "tragics" including Fairfax chief and fellow All Black, David "Captain" Kirk.

About $100,000 was raised for drug and alcohol rehab with Telstra director Belinda Hutchinson and husband Roger Massy-Greene paying $10,000 for a Wallaby jersey signed by John Howard.

© 2006 Sydney Morning Herald

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