Macquarie's unprecedented negative pay packets and Bongo Drongo fires one back
February 2, 2010
Dear Mayne Reporters,
Macquarie's annual deluge of financial information was dropped at 8.30am this morning and I've knocked up a 1400-word assessment for the Fairfax websites which is available here.
There's plenty of juicy details on all these pay issues, including a dip at those jellybacks at Risk Metrics for their Westfield pay capitulation, plus the detail on Macquarie's staggering $2.5 billion in write-downs.
There was also a quick chat with 774 ABC Melbourne morning host Jon Faine just after 9am about Nicholas Moore's staggering 99% pay cut and we did manage to capture the audio of a similar discussion with 702 ABC Sydney morning presenter Deborah Cameron.
Fairfax's Danny John has the best overall news wrap of the Macquarie result so far this morning and the big news to come will be the pricing of the $1 billion capital raising the bank is attempting.
Tony Boyd from Business Spectator has also explained the detail of Nicholas Moore's pay plunge quite well here.
If you've got Foxtel, tune in to Sky News Business at 2pm for Business View this afternoon where the panel of journalists, including Boyd and yours truly, will be assessing the Macquarie results in what has been a big week for banking.
Bongo's Drongo CEO fires one back
Finally, from the humour department, check out the CEO of CommQuest fire one back through a still supportive Amanda Gome at Smart Company after we revealed on the Fairfax websites how ANZ dropped $1 million on this crazy Bongo Virus launch party with Paris Hilton.
The 199Bongo SMS question and answer service was making about $2 million a year on revenues of $5.5 million before this whole Paris Hilton Bongo Virus joke was concocted by "entrepreneur of the year" runner-up Will Scott.
The key quote from Scott published by Smart Company was as follows: "We had 700,000 web pages linked to her name in eight weeks, and we doubled the profit of the business."
Google disagrees greatly. "Results 1 - 10 of about 42,600 for +paris +hilton +bongo +virus"
And if CommQuest doubled the $2 million a year profit, why did ANZ just agree to sell 199Bongo for only $2.3 million? That would mean it was making $4 million a year! Bongo Virus hadn't even started before the launch party with Paris Hilton, so how can you double the profit? Besides, the Bongo Virus website has now been taken down and people are still trying to work out what the actual business was meant to be?
Will Scott's claim that the Hilton sisters were only paid about one-third of a million is technically correct, even though Bongo itself came back with the $1 million figure in response to our SMS on Sunday night.
However, if you include all the other costs around the Bongo Virus launch in Sydney on New Year's Eve, it clearly exceeds $1 million. And that's the whole point - Bongo Virus was never a coherent business, whereas the 199Bongo Q&A business was a nice little earner and very simple too.
Will Scott destroyed value with his bone-headed Paris Hilton party and now he's completely in denial, claiming the company hasn't "collapsed", when the shares have been suspended since March 23.
ANZ isn't letting Will spend more than $500 without explicit approval because CommQuest has breached its banking covenants and clearly looks insolvent as this fire sale of its businesses unfolds.
The latest quarterly report was released last night and CommQuest burnt through another $536,000 in cash from its operations, whilst the ANZ is still owed $25.9 million. This thing has "collapsed" in everything but name.
If not, the board and ASX should lift the suspension and let the shares trade. There wouldn't be a buyer even at 0.1c.
That's all for now.
Do ya best, Stephen Mayne
* The Mayne Report is a multi-media governance website published by Stephen Mayne with occasional email editions. To unsubscribe from the emails click here.
Macquarie's annual deluge of financial information was dropped at 8.30am this morning and I've knocked up a 1400-word assessment for the Fairfax websites which is available here.
There's plenty of juicy details on all these pay issues, including a dip at those jellybacks at Risk Metrics for their Westfield pay capitulation, plus the detail on Macquarie's staggering $2.5 billion in write-downs.
There was also a quick chat with 774 ABC Melbourne morning host Jon Faine just after 9am about Nicholas Moore's staggering 99% pay cut and we did manage to capture the audio of a similar discussion with 702 ABC Sydney morning presenter Deborah Cameron.
Fairfax's Danny John has the best overall news wrap of the Macquarie result so far this morning and the big news to come will be the pricing of the $1 billion capital raising the bank is attempting.
Tony Boyd from Business Spectator has also explained the detail of Nicholas Moore's pay plunge quite well here.
If you've got Foxtel, tune in to Sky News Business at 2pm for Business View this afternoon where the panel of journalists, including Boyd and yours truly, will be assessing the Macquarie results in what has been a big week for banking.
Bongo's Drongo CEO fires one back
Finally, from the humour department, check out the CEO of CommQuest fire one back through a still supportive Amanda Gome at Smart Company after we revealed on the Fairfax websites how ANZ dropped $1 million on this crazy Bongo Virus launch party with Paris Hilton.
The 199Bongo SMS question and answer service was making about $2 million a year on revenues of $5.5 million before this whole Paris Hilton Bongo Virus joke was concocted by "entrepreneur of the year" runner-up Will Scott.
The key quote from Scott published by Smart Company was as follows: "We had 700,000 web pages linked to her name in eight weeks, and we doubled the profit of the business."
Google disagrees greatly. "Results 1 - 10 of about 42,600 for +paris +hilton +bongo +virus"
And if CommQuest doubled the $2 million a year profit, why did ANZ just agree to sell 199Bongo for only $2.3 million? That would mean it was making $4 million a year! Bongo Virus hadn't even started before the launch party with Paris Hilton, so how can you double the profit? Besides, the Bongo Virus website has now been taken down and people are still trying to work out what the actual business was meant to be?
Will Scott's claim that the Hilton sisters were only paid about one-third of a million is technically correct, even though Bongo itself came back with the $1 million figure in response to our SMS on Sunday night.
However, if you include all the other costs around the Bongo Virus launch in Sydney on New Year's Eve, it clearly exceeds $1 million. And that's the whole point - Bongo Virus was never a coherent business, whereas the 199Bongo Q&A business was a nice little earner and very simple too.
Will Scott destroyed value with his bone-headed Paris Hilton party and now he's completely in denial, claiming the company hasn't "collapsed", when the shares have been suspended since March 23.
ANZ isn't letting Will spend more than $500 without explicit approval because CommQuest has breached its banking covenants and clearly looks insolvent as this fire sale of its businesses unfolds.
The latest quarterly report was released last night and CommQuest burnt through another $536,000 in cash from its operations, whilst the ANZ is still owed $25.9 million. This thing has "collapsed" in everything but name.
If not, the board and ASX should lift the suspension and let the shares trade. There wouldn't be a buyer even at 0.1c.
That's all for now.
Do ya best, Stephen Mayne
* The Mayne Report is a multi-media governance website published by Stephen Mayne with occasional email editions. To unsubscribe from the emails click here.