Executive Summary: December 03, 2009
By Scott Rochfort | smh.com.au | 03 December
Prime Minister Kevin Rudd's richer half, Therese Rein, has taken a multimillion-dollar hit from having to flog her Australian job placement agency and expand her empire into a recession-ravaged Europe.
Thanks to having to offload her WorkDirections Australia business for $25.8 million after Kev was elected - to avoid any conflicts of interest - the Rein-headed Ingeus Ltd has sunk to a $9.4 million loss for the year to June 30.
In a dramatic reversal of the previous year's $15.2 million net profit, which came mainly from Australia, Ingeus blamed the loss on the fact that job finding has become a lot tougher in Europe.
"The recession across Europe has adversely impacted the group's performance this year," disclose the company's accounts. "The increase in unemployment rates and reduction in job vacancies in Britain, France and Germany have made it significantly more difficult to place and sustain long-term unemployed jobseekers in employment."
The loss was also blamed on the set-up costs in relation to Ingeus's expansion of its British, French and German operations and its entry into new markets such as Sweden over the 12-month period.
The accounts do not spell out how the $3.3 million of short-term and $436,950 of share-based payments were divvied up between managing director Rein and her senior crew.
Rein owns about 97 per cent of Ingeus. Aside from the pocket money earned from her husband's $340,704 prime ministerial salary, Rein was paid an estimated $960,000 in Ingeus dividends.
But things are looking up for her company, which in October commenced a seven-year, £265 million ($475 million) contract to help the British Government combat unemployment in parts of Scotland and England.
Ingeus, which recently set up operations in Korea, says it expects to return to profit in calendar 2010. In July, Ingeus also had one of its major contracts in France "restructured by the issuing authority to counteract the impact of the recession on the contract". The group also has subsidiaries in Israel, Holland, Poland and Switzerland.
Ingeus recently appointed the Westfield director, UNSW chancellor and chairman of Coca-Cola Amatil and ASX, David Gonski, as its chairman. Its board also includes the winegrowing Qantas director Garry Hounsell and Bob Hawke's former economic adviser and the National Competition Council commissioner, Rod Sims.
SUPER-COLIN
For pokie enthusiasts and suffering Hedley Leisure & Gaming shareholders wondering why the pub property trust changed its name to Redcape this week, CBD might have the answer.
A spy at the Killara Golf Club, where the Redcape chairman, Colin Henson, has been a member for 33 years, informed CBD how many members at the club referred to him as Superman.
It is unclear if Henson simply got the nickname of the superhero with the red cape from his skills with a nine-iron or his squarish jaw.
When CBD quizzed Henson on how he came across the name Redcape, he initially played coy on the superman reference.
"We looked at all the available names and I wrote down about 80 names, just one after the other."
Henson said he was shocked to see that 78 of the names had already been taken, except a "Cape". So he had thought up a Yellow Cape and Blue Cape, "and then I said, 'What about a Redcape?'
"The fact that it relates to Superman has got nothing to do with it," said an unconvincing Redcape chairman.
But when learning that CBD knew of his nickname, Henson said: "It was coincidental. But I don't mind if it has that connotation I suppose."
Henson would not disclose how he got the nickname, only to say it came from his squash-playing days. "It's a tag I've never really minded," said Henson, who plays golf with an 11 handicap.
No doubt Henson would be happy for this nickname to translate into the corporate world, where he has attempted to do a few superhero-inspired turnarounds in the past. He is the chairman of the smartcard operator-cum-NSW Government litigant Videlli (formerly known as ERG) and was a financial director of the one-time Adelaide Steamship Group-owned brewer and owner of 600 pubs, Tooth & Co.
Redcape's heavily indebted ex-chief executive, Tom Hedley, lost his 57 per cent stake in the company through a margin loan.
ASIC LETS LOOSE
The corporate puppy dog has struck fear into the big end of town by disclosing late yesterday that it had established a "cross functional management team" and Market Supervision Advisory Panel.
In preparation for the planned transfer of market surveillance responsibilities from the ASX to the Australian Securities and Investments Commission, the regulator announced it had set up a crack team "to develop proposals for assuming its new market supervision responsibilities".
"ASIC plans to consult publicly in the first quarter of 2010 about the rules it will supervise," thundered the announcement.
The set up of the surveillance team follows the release of a consultation paper from Treasury. It is suspected the team could make proposals that could lead to the formation of another ASIC team that will make its own proposals.
It is unclear if the Market Supervision Advisory Panel, which will oversee the process, will make its own proposals. ASIC said in a statement that it would seek input from industry and lobby groups, such as the Stockbrokers Association.
MEGA LEGALESE
There now seems to be an official term for obscenely expensive court cases. A full bench of the Federal Court, in dismissing the Seven Network's loss in the $200 million C7 trade practices suit yesterday, said: "The trial judge described this case as 'mega litigation', a description which we think is appropriate."
The decision noted how the pleadings "occupied 1028 pages", the trial "occupied 120 sitting days" and the transcript of the trial was 9530 pages in length.
"The statements of the witnesses' evidence in chief totalled 3654 pages, of which 2041 pages were those of the expert witnesses; 12,849 documents totalling 115,586 pages were tendered by way of evidence.
"The applicants' written closing submissions in chief totalled 1556 pages. The respondents between them generated 2594 pages of written closing submissions. The applicants' submissions in reply totalled 812 pages."
And the full bench of the court noted: "The enormity of the task which confronted the trial judge cannot be understated."
The original judgment in the case was 1173 pages.
First published by Smh.com.au on December 03 2009
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