Tinkler horses go under the hammer
The rump of Nathan Tinkler's thoroughbred racing empire was due to be shipped up to the Gold Coast over the weekend ready to be sold off at the Magic Millions sales starting this Sunday morning.
The batch includes his last champion, Hooked, who won the $125,000 Cameron Handicap in Newcastle last week, giving the former boganaire a rare win in the city that he claims had "shit" on him.
Magic Millions owner, billionaire Gerry Harvey, showed there are no hard feelings despite being forced to take possession of Tinkler's horse folly, Patinack, to settle debts of $40 million.
He says Tinkler should be "praised" as "no government stimulation package has put in the money Nathan Tinkler put into racing".
That's one way of looking at it.
The big issue will be what happens if the sale fails to recover what Harvey is owed, which means the Harvey Norman founder will have to join the long list of people chasing Tinkler for money.
"If it doesn't bring the money he owes then we will have to come to some arrangement how that will be paid," an ever optimistic Harvey recently told CBD's racing colleague Chris Roots.
Harvey is going to great lengths to make the sale a success. He has indicated that he will not be holding any favourites back from the sale.
If the billionaire is interested in any of Tinkler's remaining nags he will bid at auction.
Nice line in judgments
There's nothing like a fresh appointment to breathe some life into the stale corridors of justice.
CBD was overjoyed to see that the new Federal Court appointee, Justice Jonathan Beach, was not letting the occasion get to him when ruling on interlocutory proceedings brought by Snowy Hydro in its legal battle with the Australian Energy Regulator.
"In my view, Snowy Hydro's application for such a separate determination should be refused. Its application has only the superficial allure of expediency, it flirts with heresies such as interlocutory declarations, and it seeks to entice me down a path descending inevitably into an inferno of appellate scrutiny more unforgiving than even Dante's allegorical circles."
James Hardie investors in the pink
After all the alarm last week about the latest compo problems for James Hardie's asbestos victims, CBD thought it was time to check whether the latest batch of investors in the asbestos-tainted company were feeling the pain.
After a quick look at the company's ASX announcements we were able to breathe a sigh of relief.
The drip-feed arrangements for its underfunded asbestos victims does not seem to apply to James Hardie investors.
At the company's AGM in Dublin las month its chairman Michael Hammes revealed that, thanks to the US housing recovery, it continued to be "both operationally and financially robust" and gave investors additional reasons to cheer on the company's recent anniversary.
"During fiscal year 2014, James Hardie recognised its 125-year anniversary as a company and the board declared a special dividend of US28¢ ... to acknowledge this milestone," Hammes said.
He went on to mention the US20¢ special dividend paid in May on top of the US40¢ of ordinary dividends paid during the year which reflects "our underlying confidence in our businesses".
And to the extent that the board decides not to undertake further share buybacks, it "may consider further distributions to shareholders" during the current financial year.
Given the bounty on offer, it is no wonder that investors voted around 99 per cent in favour of the appointment of former CFO Russell Chenu to the board.
"During his tenure, Russell was intimately involved in the resolution of several significant legacy issues facing James Hardie, including the establishment of the Amended and Restated Financial Funding Agreement covering the company's asbestos compensation arrangements in Australia, the redomicile of James Hardie from the Netherlands to Ireland and the resolution of the 1999 Disputed Amended Assessment with the Australian Taxation Office," said his chairman.
The resolution to lift the board's pay pool to $2.3 million did even better, getting support from about 99.5 per cent of proxies.
And we imagine deputy chairman, Donald McGauchie, will not be unhappy with the lack of Aussie investors making their way to Dublin for the annual meetings.
Got a tip? ckruger@fairfaxmedia.com.au
