Aristocrat Leisure Limited (ALL):
How Jamie Odell turned around Aristocrat Exclusive Trevor Croker has big shoes to fill and big plans ahead. Jamie Odell well remembers the unfriendly welcome he got soon after taking over in December 2008 as chief executive of poker machines and gaming company Aristocrat Leisure. Aristocrat was battling falling profits, big legal cases, disgruntled shareholders after a string of profit downgrades and a poor internal culture. Odell, having left a senior management role at Foster’s Group, also had to contend with being an outsider in his new industry. A trip to Rooty Hill RSL in Sydney’s west – the biggest RSL in the country – to meet what was an important customer offered little respite to Odell. ‘‘I went down there and basically got told: ‘We don’t need you anymore. We are happy to meet you but we don’t need you any more’. It was a very clear message.
Santos Limited (STO):
Towards the end of a frighteningly turbulent 2015, Santos management approached a small community of major Australian manufacturers and gas customers with invitations to acquire discounted equity in the strategically important but politically controversial Narrabri coal seam gas project. Two heavy gas users known to have been approached by then Santos chief executive David Knox were BlueScope Steel and, less formally, Incitec Pivot. Knox is understood to have held high-level discussions with BlueScope about an offer of a modestly priced equity share of up to 25 per cent in the stalled Narrabri project near the NSW rural centre of Gunnedah, in return for an equity share of gas that would be priced at production cost. Santos had invested more than $1 billion in acquiring and assessing the Narrabri project, but the pricing of the equity Knox offered was set on a far lower base than that accumulation cost.
Treasury Wine Estates Limited (TWE):
When analysts and fund managers gather in picturesque St Helena and its surrounds in California’s Napa Valley on March 9 and 10 for a full run-through of Treasury Wine Estates’ plan for super-charging its American wine business, the lessons of history may loom large. Chief executive Michael Clarke is well-deserving of the accolades bestowed on him for turning the owner of Penfolds, Wolf Blass and Wynns into a $9 billion company and enriching shareholders, who are toasting a fourfold climb in its share price to beyond $12 in just three years. The decision by the Treasury board in early 2014 to choose the former food executive from Kraft and British gravy and cakes maker Premier Foods was a shrewd one. Having fuelled an extraordinary jump in profits from China after repositioning Penfolds as a luxury product with Wolf Blass in its slipstream, Clarke will now spend much more of his time in the Treasury offices in California as he attempts an even tougher re-invigoration in the land of Donald Trump.
Westpac Banking Corporation (WBC):
Westpac will begin to wind up its robo advice product BT Go-invest over the next two weeks, with the remaining investors rolled into an alternative product or cashed out by Wednesday, March 15. Westpac declined to reveal the number of clients or the funds under management it had attracted with Goinvest. Launched in April 2015, the product offered investors four model portfolios ranging from conservative to high growth. A decision was made to shutter the project one year later after an internal review found the model unviable. The internal review found ‘‘the current level of fees charged is not sustainable’’ and ‘‘the product would require a level of investment that could not be justified given the limited amount of funds managed by the product’’. The lower cost of delivering an investment product without an intermediary has vast appeal for the wealth management industry, which is facing off growing numbers of self-directed investors and stricter rules around adviser remuneration.
Woolworths Limited (WOW):
Macquarie Group-backed industrial property group Logos and investment partner Ivanhoe Cambridge have struck a deal to buy the Woolworths regional distribution centre in the Sydney suburb of Minchinbury for about $160 million. The move, flagged by The Australian last November, boosts the Logos portfolio in the western Sydney industrial market and reinforces offshore interest in the local assets. The newly-acquired asset will go into the unlisted Logos Australia Investment Venture, which has recently approved a $500m capital investment in Australian prime industrial real estate with a focus on value add opportunities.
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How Jamie Odell turned around Aristocrat Exclusive Trevor Croker has big shoes to fill and big plans ahead. Jamie Odell well remembers the unfriendly welcome he got soon after taking over in December 2008 as chief executive of poker machines and gaming company Aristocrat Leisure. Aristocrat was battling falling profits, big legal cases, disgruntled shareholders after a string of profit downgrades and a poor internal culture. Odell, having left a senior management role at Foster’s Group, also had to contend with being an outsider in his new industry. A trip to Rooty Hill RSL in Sydney’s west – the biggest RSL in the country – to meet what was an important customer offered little respite to Odell. ‘‘I went down there and basically got told: ‘We don’t need you anymore. We are happy to meet you but we don’t need you any more’. It was a very clear message.
Santos Limited (STO):
Towards the end of a frighteningly turbulent 2015, Santos management approached a small community of major Australian manufacturers and gas customers with invitations to acquire discounted equity in the strategically important but politically controversial Narrabri coal seam gas project. Two heavy gas users known to have been approached by then Santos chief executive David Knox were BlueScope Steel and, less formally, Incitec Pivot. Knox is understood to have held high-level discussions with BlueScope about an offer of a modestly priced equity share of up to 25 per cent in the stalled Narrabri project near the NSW rural centre of Gunnedah, in return for an equity share of gas that would be priced at production cost. Santos had invested more than $1 billion in acquiring and assessing the Narrabri project, but the pricing of the equity Knox offered was set on a far lower base than that accumulation cost.
Treasury Wine Estates Limited (TWE):
When analysts and fund managers gather in picturesque St Helena and its surrounds in California’s Napa Valley on March 9 and 10 for a full run-through of Treasury Wine Estates’ plan for super-charging its American wine business, the lessons of history may loom large. Chief executive Michael Clarke is well-deserving of the accolades bestowed on him for turning the owner of Penfolds, Wolf Blass and Wynns into a $9 billion company and enriching shareholders, who are toasting a fourfold climb in its share price to beyond $12 in just three years. The decision by the Treasury board in early 2014 to choose the former food executive from Kraft and British gravy and cakes maker Premier Foods was a shrewd one. Having fuelled an extraordinary jump in profits from China after repositioning Penfolds as a luxury product with Wolf Blass in its slipstream, Clarke will now spend much more of his time in the Treasury offices in California as he attempts an even tougher re-invigoration in the land of Donald Trump.
Westpac Banking Corporation (WBC):
Westpac will begin to wind up its robo advice product BT Go-invest over the next two weeks, with the remaining investors rolled into an alternative product or cashed out by Wednesday, March 15. Westpac declined to reveal the number of clients or the funds under management it had attracted with Goinvest. Launched in April 2015, the product offered investors four model portfolios ranging from conservative to high growth. A decision was made to shutter the project one year later after an internal review found the model unviable. The internal review found ‘‘the current level of fees charged is not sustainable’’ and ‘‘the product would require a level of investment that could not be justified given the limited amount of funds managed by the product’’. The lower cost of delivering an investment product without an intermediary has vast appeal for the wealth management industry, which is facing off growing numbers of self-directed investors and stricter rules around adviser remuneration.
Woolworths Limited (WOW):
Macquarie Group-backed industrial property group Logos and investment partner Ivanhoe Cambridge have struck a deal to buy the Woolworths regional distribution centre in the Sydney suburb of Minchinbury for about $160 million. The move, flagged by The Australian last November, boosts the Logos portfolio in the western Sydney industrial market and reinforces offshore interest in the local assets. The newly-acquired asset will go into the unlisted Logos Australia Investment Venture, which has recently approved a $500m capital investment in Australian prime industrial real estate with a focus on value add opportunities.
(So
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