Proving he can walk and chew gum at the same time, Sir Ron Brierley's current plaything Mercantile Investment has two takeover bids on the go as it continues to try to suck up market minnows.
He is bidding for cashbox EZA, which has $9 million in cash, while also seeking to buy MHM Metals, which has $5.4 million in cash.
Ron Brierley has been busy on the M&A; trail.
In both cases, their true worth may well be accumulated tax losses since MHM alone has $25 million in losses on the balance sheet, if it can be accessed.
And since the latest deals follow takeovers of Richfield International and Kiwi retailer Kirkcaldie & Stains, finalised in late 2016, shareholders in Mercantile must be hoping the company gets a volume discount from lawyers and advisers used in the deals it pursues, which show few signs of slowing.
Healthscope chief Gordon Ballantyne.Credit: Pat Scala
New direction
All good things come to those who wait, it seems, and for Gordon Ballantyne, the one-time head of Telstra's retail operations, it has been an 18-month wait since he left Telstra after once being tipped to replace chief executive David Thodey. He has finally got a full-time job at a public company, even if it is running Healthscope, which is a fair way from his expertise in telcos.
That said, he did found Telstra Health, which is described as "focused on e-health solutions and health analytics".
While the Healthscope chair Paula Dwyer is patting herself on the back for "succession planning being an important ongoing process at Healthscope", whatever that may mean, Ballantyne won't be getting the keys to the executive suite until mid-May. And outgoing boss Robert Cooke will be hanging around for another year. Well, sort of.
Cooke has a 12-month non-compete clause but it has been decided he will hang around, in an advisory capacity, of course, for another year. Just how much he will be paid for the pleasure hasn't been disclosed.
Illustration: John Shakespeare
In his last full year, Cooke pocketed $3.94 million, and a cursory glance at the salary package to be paid to the new chum indicates there is no significant change.
Riding with giants
As part of research for his autobiographical story, Riding with Giants, Peter Homes a Court and his wife, the conflict-zone photographer Alissa Everett, tried to get into Manus Island last week, but were denied entry. The two are part of the UNSW Grand Challenge on Refugees & Migrants.
The Grand Challenge on Refugees & Migrants, along with Climate Change and Inequality, form part of the UNSW Grand Challenges program, which seeks to address the biggest issues facing humanity by leading open and informed debate.
Having sold his share of the South Sydney Rabbitohs rugby league club, Homes a Court, the son of Robert, who nearly bought BHP in the mid 1980s, now focuses on humanitarian causes.
Funtastic time ends
CBD is heartened to discover there can indeed be benefits in running a debt-riddled company with $232 million of accumulated losses and a share price hovering under 1¢.
The toy distributor Funtastic on Monday dispatched a notice of meeting to its investors, which include retail billionaire Gerry Harvey and News Corp co-chairman Lachlan Murdoch, where it outlined the list of reasons why shareholders should back the group's plans to delist from the ASX.
While it expects to save $250,000 a year in costs from its planned delisting, Funtastic notes one potential disadvantage is the "negative perception of value of the shares".
To offer comfort to its shareholders over this concern, Funtastic notes its "directors do not consider that the proposed removal would have any material effect on valuation of the company's shares".
It certainly helps drive home this argument when your share price has dipped more than 99 per cent from its peak to 0.007¢. Seems there already was negative perception of Funtastic's share price before the planned delisting.
Moving home
Finally some good news for the real estate group, McGrath, with the return of director Christopher Mourd as head of the franchise network of McGrath Estate Agents.
Having spent close to a decade as head of real estate/residential for LJ Hooker Australia, after a seven-year stint at McGrath, he has come back to boost the listed group's executive leadership team.