A Hearty Distraction For Sol

Sydney Morning Herald

Tuesday December 2, 2008

Michael Evans

Michael Evans goes home only for Christmas and the weekly washing load.

Sol Trujillo has plenty of reasons to give thanks.

Even when the PepsiMax-swilling American is working a long way from home, he can still find a reason to spend Thanksgiving back in the US.

We couldn't help but wonder where Sol has been this past week. After all, he's been noticeably absent from selling the merits of the "bid" for the national broadband network, leaving it up to the man who hired him, chairman Don "McGoogle" McGauchie.

You might recall Telstra's board met last Wednesday, just hours before the tender closed.

A spokesthing confirmed Sol has been stateside (again) for the past week or so.

But he wasn't able to shed any light on whether his boss had been at the board meeting, either by Telstra hologram or in person.

"I'm not sure how he attended the meeting," he said. "I'm sure Sol will be out there when deemed appropriate."

So when is Sol back to run the country's fourth-largest company? Or at least to check on his phone bill?

"He'll be back very soon. He was with his family for Thanksgiving in the States as you'd expect."

Hope he didn't dribble any gravy on the phone.

You can count your stars (and stripes) that one movie Sol won't be seeing is Australia.

Mr Snuffleupagus

It's not a great time to be selling the family jewels.

So spare a thought for Macquarie Infrastructure Group, which has flogged half of its stake in the M7 to, um, itself and a new investment buddy that's a bit shy about outing itself.

We're not sure why, particularly considering it picked up its stake below book value. Something to sing about, surely. Then again, for MIG, that would make it sound like a write-down by any other name.

Still, we can't help but wonder about their identity. And we suspect we've been here before.

Consider. MIG used to own toll roads around Sydney that it spun off a few years back to Sydney Roads Group. That was, in turn, picked up by Transurban.

Now MIG has come up with a plan to sell the M7 to a similarly named Western Sydney Roads Group, owned by itself and "a leading Australian institutional investment manager."

Odd how Western Sydney Roads Group isn't registered with the corporate plod.

Still, Macquarie insists it's not staring in the mirror, and who are we to argue? After all, everyone needs an imaginary friend. Let's just call it MIG's Mr Snuffleupagus.

All the same, it's a handy way to put the asset in play, given MIG needs the cash and Transurban has a pre-emptive right to buy the other half.

However you look at it, MIG has decided to ruin Transurban boss Chris Lynch's Christmas.

Something different

Ho, ho, ho. Debt, debt, debt. Christmas hampers have been off the menu at Park Street's PBL Media for a while now. But perhaps it's time to bring them back. Alongside a ham and pudding, we suspect PBL Media would be more than happy to offload a few million in debt to each employee, along with an onerous banking covenant, a few members of its banking syndicate and an autographed photo of Adrian Mackenzie.

Lunchtime bust

Was it only a few months ago that Twiggy Forrest was the richest man in Australia?

Our spies in the west report fresh signs of financial distress at Twiggy's Fortescue Metals.

If their boss's loss of more than $11 billion in five months was not a clear enough signal, workers have received a reminder that boom times are over.

Fortescue management is cutting off the free daily spread put on at Perth HQ at lunchtime.

We hear the lunches were modest but hearty affairs, with a selection of cold meats, salads, breads, fruit and a couple of hot dishes, such as pasta and rice.

The free meal will disappear as the company trims costs to deal with market worries about iron ore sales and whether its mines can deliver on Twiggy's hype.

Staff will be asked to chip in $5 for the feed. Don't know if Twiggy gets a discount.

Defanged

As bullet dodges go, it's not a bad effort.

Melbourne housewife Fang He has ceased to be a substantial shareholder in BrisConnections.

Ms He popped up as a substantial holder last month with an 8 per cent stake when every other investor was running for the hills. He, who forked out $32,300 for the stake, faced coming up with a further $65 million as payment for a second instalment next year. But He managed to offload the 32 million units for the same price she got in at.

Melbourne internet domain name company Australian Style Investments, run by Nicholas Bolton, has taken a 12 per cent stake and is believed to have picked up He's stake. It either has deep pockets or another agenda.

Raise the Guv'nor

Glenn Stevens isn't one to die wondering. And as he goes into today's interest rate setting meeting, the Guv'nor has some form for changing his mind. Minutes of the past two RBA board meetings show Stevens went in with a recommendation for a 50 basis point cut. History shows he came out with a little more.

The first time he took the number and doubled it to 100 basis points. The second time he went for 75.

While we don't yet know what the recommendation is this time, there are those hoping the trend continues.

No doubt Stevens can't have missed retailers such as Gerry Harvey, Solly Lew and Mark McInnes moaning about how tough times are. Perhaps board member Roger Corbett might remind him.

Massaging the news

Announcing it was scrapping its new planned magazine Glamour yesterday, News Limited provided contact details for a News spokesthing, Kat Vidovic. We tried Kat on her mobile and figured she must have been moonlighting. After all, each time we dialled the number provided, we kept reaching Simone, a massage therapist in Hobart.

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© 2008 Sydney Morning Herald

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