Bye-bye Palmie, Hi Highlands

Sydney Morning Herald

Tuesday March 14, 2006

James Chessell

James Chessell has excelled himself in racy colour and amazing gossip.

IT'S been about 13 years since Greg Daniel sat down with Susan Renouf for a cup of coffee and ended up buying a Whale Beach property for $1.8 million.

The former adman has been making a few changes of late and the Rayner Road pile he owns with tax lawyer wife Louise McBride is on the market for something like $8 million. No doubt neighbours such as Dame Joan Sutherland, Port Jackson Partner boss Terrey Arcus, cartoonist Patrick Cook and foodie Simon Johnson will be sad to see the happy couple leave.

Daniel says the decision to sell was made for family reasons. The erstwhile Clemenger executive and McBride plan to spend the proceeds on a city apartment and a Southern Highlands property to be closer to the kids.

Meanwhile, Daniel has severed ties with Third Person, the communications outfit (now in the thick of the AGL-Alinta blue), after his chairman's seat was removed. The rather abrupt parting of the ways occurred late last year and may have had something to do with Daniel setting up a rival enterprise called Statecraft with Michael Priebe.

Pushing envelope

Little wonder Arcus can afford to keep a house in such a lovely area. Port Jackson Partners - which he founded with former McKinsey's and Fairfax poohbah Fred Hilmer - is making bucketloads from those in need of a good management consulting. Port Jackson - whose other directors include one-time adviser to the PM Rod Sims as well as ex-McKinseyites David White, Philip Stern and Byron Pirola - recorded a net profit of $4.3 million in 2004 while dividends of $4.8 million were paid.

Last year's result was even better according to the latest accounts filed with the corporate regulator. Net profit was $7.2 million. Divvies were down a bit at $4.4 million.

It just goes to show what kind of money can be made from providing listed companies with knowledge-based solutions and initiatives going forward that focus on the core. One of Port Jackson's strengths, the firm notes on its website, is "organisation studies". This involves helping "prepare a client's corporate organisational framework so that it is best able to implement its strategic direction and operational priorities".

Radio star

It's a difficult job getting a word in when one of your fellow directors is Mark Howard Carnegie. But Macquarie Radio Network boss Angela Clark did pretty well at yesterday morning's interim briefing at the Hilton.

Being able to express an opinion would be a prerequisite for running a company whose main shareholder is John Singleton and star employee is Alan Jones. (The voluble Carnegie is the other substantial shareholder). Having talked up the numbers to market types, Clark was among the crowd at the Horden last night for the Bestest gala.

The dinner - which raised money for six children's charities - attracted the likes of Lion Nathan's chief brewer Rob Murray, Allco boss David Coe, Westpac's head teller, David Murray, whose bank is in the middle of moving offices, and Ten boss and Bestest director Nick Falloon.

Walter Bugno, who'll soon be running Tabcorp's casino interests, was also there along with property developer Lang Walker, Bob Hawke and Damian Eales, Mark McInness's right-hand man at David Jones. All were treated to food by more celebrity chefs than you could poke a skillet at.

Out of the pack

Two of the Thundering Herd's more seasoned operatives, Bruce McLennan and Tony Holt, have shot through. The departures would suggest all is not well at the American bank but we're told both bankers - who've been around for years now - were looking for something new and shouldn't affect the all-important top line.

A former Centaurus adviser, McLennan, will return to his independent roots at Gresham where he's been made a fourth MD. The others are David Feetham, Michael Ashforth, and Chris Boahm.

McLennan - who will apparently continue working on the Wattyl defence for Merrill - won't need to introduce himself to Feetham, given the pair worked together for MIM during the Xstrata takeover. They have known each other for 17 years, since they met in London on Macquarie marketing tour organised by AGL chairman Mark "No Conflict" Johnson.

Gresham is keeping busy these days advising the likes of David Jones, Tethyan Copper and Wesfarmers.

For his part, Holt has joined Citigroup. Having worked on Merrill's winning pitch for the Telstra advisory role, he'll run telecoms, media and technology for the other Seppo shop. Merrill's local boss Geoff Brunsdon welcomes recruit Greg Quinn next week which at least adds another body. There are expected to be one or two appointments in the coming weeks.

Charity walk

It's not all revolving doors for Brunsdon who was first across the line during a 20/20 corporate challenge over the weekend. We say "first across the line" because the Merrill team - which also included Matt Keenan and Chris Shepherd - was one short of the required four and should probably be considered non-compliant.

A good effort from Shepherd, nevertheless, given his performance came off the back of torrid bucks night.

The main point of the day, of course, was to raise money for the Spastic Centre. Sponsor Macquarie was particularly well represented on the 20km walk and 2km swim near Shelley beach while a UBS team led by Richard Hunt was also sighted. It was the third annual challenge - last year's event raised $300,000 - and is the idea of MacBanker James Hodgkinson and accountant Ross Ellis-Flint, who's the brother of Santos boss John.

Site allowance

Must be tough sitting on the Rio Tinto board. Paul Skinner may have cracked the magical $US1 million mark for a non-executive chairman's fees but there's all that travel.

Jolly good the Pommy miner dolls out "hardship" payments for long-haul flights in addition to the paltry base fees. For flights of more than 10 hours, directors get an allowance of $US7,330 ($10,000). For flights of 5-10 hours the allowance is halved.

© 2006 Sydney Morning Herald

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