One appointment that very nearly slipped past us before the Christmas break was that of Tony D'Aloisio as the next chairman of establishment financial services house Perpetual. The 67-year-old former corporate cop will succeed outgoing chair Peter Scott on May 31. Once Perpetual's chief executive Geoff Lloyd unveiled the Peter Scott Shrine on the company's lavish new Level 18 client floor (Lloyd spent $10 million – more than 5 per cent of FY16 net profit before tax – on the upgrade) that Perpetual's value-investing equities team (which accounts for the other 95 per cent of PBT) won't take clients to, what more could Scott ever hope to achieve?! Little does he know, Lloyd's already having the replacement D'Aloisio nameplate forged in sterling silver!
But unfortunately for Lloyd, his new chairman will never be able to look after him as well as he was once looked after by his own. Remember that in 2006, when D'Aloisio stood down as ASX chief executive, the exchange's board (led by chairman Maurice Newman) handed him an obscene $7.8 million termination payment – about 6.5 times his base salary; the legal cap was seven times – when the national bourse merged with the Sydney Futures Exchange and the latter's boss Robert Elstone was installed as CEO of the new entity.
The following year, Treasurer Peter Costello appointed D'Aloisio to chair the Australian Securities & Investments Commission (Costello now chairs a major wholesale investor, the Future Fund) and in 2009, the Corporations Act was amended to require shareholder approval of any severance payments in excess of one year's base salary. ASIC under D'Aloisio very generously waved through the legislation!
Since Wayne Swan replaced him with Greg Medcraft, D'Aloisio has been surprisingly low-profile, though he's been churning out the Yarra Valley's finest chardonnay at Oakridge Wines – the vineyard he owns with wife Ilana Atlas, the woman most likely to succeed David Gonski in the chair at Coca-Cola Amatil.
Got all that or do you need us to draw a diagram?
