Domino's Pizza has been telling anyone who'll listen for quite some time that there's fewer greater businesses to have than being a franchisee in its 600-strong network.
Fairfax Media cast a little more than a sceptical eye over this model earlier this year, which was said to be so tight it encouraged underpayment of staff. This prompted a furious response from chief executive Don Meij.
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Domino's complained that the coverage "did not reflect the strong financial performance of its franchise network". It's a free world, so good luck to Don.
But his remonstrations have done little to convince investors who have kept driving the share price down as the shorts have kept piling in.
![Domino's Pizza CEO Don Meij at the company's annual technology showcase in Sydney.](http://web.archive.org./web/20170715010430im_/https://www.fairfaxstatic.com.au/content/dam/images/g/u/o/8/q/u/image.related.articleLeadwide.620x349.gx5e00.png/1499343388826.jpg)
And here we find ourselves a few months later looking at a punchy note from Deutsche Bank analyst Michael Simotas published on Thursday suggesting Domino's was about to cut the size of its pizzas to help boost the bottom line of franchisees.
So it ain't dough!
Simotas directly linked the move – and a parallel decision to opt for Pepsi over Coke – to a desire to ease margin pressure caused by the introduction of penalty rates in a new enterprise agreement for staff.
Domino's said the note unfortunately took "out of context" movements afoot to freshen its menu. CBD is willing to eat a hat – in preference to a Domino's pizza – if it turns out that the new menu features same-sized slices as the current offerings.
![Bay Warburton has a new job at Mirvac.](http://web.archive.org./web/20170715010430im_/https://www.fairfaxstatic.com.au/content/dam/images/g/t/v/i/n/v/image.related.articleLeadNarrow.300x0.gx5e00.png/1499343388826.jpg)
The whole episode had echoes of another brush Simotas had with Domino's last year when he suggested the company could face a hefty bill from penalty rates.
Meij complained Domino's hadn't been given the chance to "sanitise" that research before it was published.
Praise the Lord
The former NSW premier Mike Baird and his team, while not so popular in many inner Sydney bars that close early in the evening, are still a hit with the big end of town.
With Baird already taking a high-paying executive job at NAB at the start of the year, the property group Mirvac on Thursday announced it had snared the ex-premier's chief of staff Bay Warburton as its head of stakeholder relations.
Warburton will be responsible for the property group's "strategic partnerships with government" and general spin doctoring duties.
Mirvac chief executive Susan Lloyd-Hurwitz said Warburton's appointment "will enable us to build on our strong reputation, and ensure early effective engagement with the stakeholders who are critical to Mirvac's ongoing success". Suppose that means Warburton knows how to pick up the phone to the right people in the Gladys Berejiklian government.
A committed Christian like his former boss Baird, Warburton has previously noted that he is always answerable to a certain someone irrespective of whom he is employed by.
"I try to live in a way that shows that God is my king, that God is ruler of my life. In the way I treat people, in the way I do my job, in the consistency with which I apply myself. I need to do my job well, I need to do it honourably, I need to do it with integrity," he said at a function last October hosted by the University of NSW's Warrane College.
Amen.
Greed and stupidity
There are potentially fewer more common pairings of attributes in the history of financial misdeeds than greed and stupidity. CBD was reminded of this in an Administrative Appeals Tribunal finding on Thursday against Rommel Panganiban.
Our Rommel, a Bella Vista resident, was a financial planer for AMP. Rommel unnecessarily churned 49 of his clients' insurance policies generating commissions for himself worth about $108,000, according to the tribunal judgment.
This was despite the practice causing real risks to the people who trusted him, including gaps in coverage.
Rommel was in front of the tribunal appealing a lifetime ban from the Australian Securities and Investments Commission.
Playing against him was the fact that when he was confronted over the issue by AMP he told inquisitors he had been motivated by "stupidity and greed".
His attempt to withdraw that confession at the tribunal didn't fly.
"It is far more likely, and I find, that Mr Panganiban's ...admission of stupidity and greed was a candid and reliable acknowledgement of the reality of his conduct."