Demutual Benefits For Nrma Chiefs
Sun Herald
Sunday July 18, 1999
THE NRMA's demutualisation gravy train appears to have left the station unusually early. Whatever the pros and cons of spinning off the insurance company, the real winners won't be hard to find. Since ex-CEO Malcolm Jones was paid $3 million, according to the annual report. It will be interesting to see what his successor Eric Dodd gets, what with all this extra work involving demutualisation. Meanwhile, two new committees overseeing the process are already earning their lucky members extra director fees.
Poor form
ALL this money has not, however, enabled the NRMA to design the perfect form for members to confirm the details of their policies. Or else it considers marriage to be an extinct social custom, because the forms assume there is only one policy holder and don't have any room for joint names or signatures.
On line for Optus
IT seems Optus is having some success signing up customers for its local call service, which it is rolling out on a suburb-by-suburb basis. Optus charges 20? a call, up to 5? cheaper than Telstra. But its real trump card is that it's offering increasingly Internet-savvy Australians an additional phone line for free - about a $170 saving. The bad news for Optus is that the second phone line seems to hold more appeal than its pay-TV service which uses the same wire.
Force feeding
MEANWHILE, Telstra has taken a leaf out of the books of TV networks which delight in keeping viewers waiting while programs run overtime because they are stacked with previews. Callers to 013 have to endure an ad for Telstra's other services before being told the number they're after.
Speed's the key
A WELCOME sign of the times. The revamped Merrony's has had to bring its relaunch date at the Quay Apartments, Circular Quay, forward to tomorrow. An invitation which arrived on Thursday had a postscript: "Sorry for the short notice of the invitation but the building works were completed ahead of schedule!" Who would have thought 10 years ago that it could happen in Australia?
Skip the jargon
ONE of the new directors of eBet, another web stock about to float, is Gary Gray, described in the prospectus as "a senior consultant to the gaming & wagering and racing industries in Australasia and Asia, and [with] 20 years' experience in television and entertainment as an actor and producer/ director". In fact, he was in Skippy, played a motorcycle cop in Division 4 and was in Seaspray with David Morgan, now MD of Westpac. By the way, eBet, which is the web operator for the NZ TAB, naturally takes bets on sheep dog trials.
Humble pie
AT least he's got a sense of humour. Chief corporate watchdog Alan Cameron sent a letter to the Financial Review last week after he was picked up by a reader for wrongly saying that land and buildings could be amortised under accounting standards. Dirt, of course, can't be depreciated. "I write to you with my cap in my hand and mea culpa on my lips," he wrote.
Costly spiel
IT'S always illuminating to find out what they think on the other side of the fence and seeking money from the public is a rare occasion for such candour. For example, the new float for TVSN, the 24-hour pay-TV shopping outfit, suggests it's not the bargain paradise it appears but flogs its wares for "high gross margins", according to its spruiking to investors. "These products sell more on information content than price," it says in what seems a distinctly original way to describe a gold necklace. Like most new floats, there's actually not a profit, but plenty of revenue.
Beatles toured for a pittance
THE Beatles were paid only #2,500 for their 1964 Australian tour, when they played to almost 200,000 concertgoers. This deal of the century was struck by the late Kenn Brodziak, of Aztec Services, just before the group's successful US tour. And last week the contract, signed by Beatles manager Brian Epstein, was auctioned by Downie's. It fetched $42,000 which, after allowing for inflation, makes the contract alone about half of what the Beatles earned for the tour.
Shark netted
LIBERTYONE, an early star Internet stock that nobody understood and so thought must be good, runs something called Vision.net which its CEO Warren Lee says will "acquire and manage the digital rights and Internet presence of personalities and events", including a "Greg Norman interactive". It will be called shark.com.
© 1999 Sun Herald
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