Could it be true — is ASIC boss James Shipton about to move his corporate coppers onto the lawns of defunct food delivery app Foodora?
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It would be about time. The Berlin-based tech company's local offshoot, which hit the wall in August, left behind a single board member, 23-year-old accountant Lisa Bushnell who until recently still lived in her parents' house in suburban Belrose.
Having appointed administer Simon Cathro of Worrells Solvency, Foodora was in an almighty tax fight after being forced to classify its cyclists as employees, not contractors.
That was the handiwork of former Transport Workers Union boss Tony Sheldon, now on Labor’s Senate ticket for the coming election.
Besides having to find millions to pay the tax office and another $5 million for cyclists, we hear Cathro has been in contact with the Australian Securities and Investments Commission and “completed a report” relating to s438D of the Corporations Act.
What that means we can only guess.
But Cathro has made it clear he believes the company had three “shadow” board members — and if he’s right — they would be on the hook if Foodora is found to have broken the law.
And while Shipton and his mates over at ASIC's 100 Market Street headquarters are busy losing seemingly unlosable court cases against the banks, Foodora — owned by the Frankfurt-listed Delivery Hero — would be fertile ground for a proper investigation.
(We asked ASIC, but were reminded the watchdog doesn't confirm what inquiries it may, or may not, be conducting.)
It must be who you know
Liberal MP Craig Kelly spent half the year on Sky News bagging one of the Coalition’s key policies, the National Energy Guarantee — fine, that's his call.
Yet this lack of loyalty didn’t prevent him from being saved when preselection for his South Western Sydney electorate of Hughes was under threat.
Sadly, the same dubious standards do not apply to the president of the Ryde Young Liberals, Hugo Robinson, who has been suspended from the party for having the temerity to make a few obvious observations in the pages of the Herald.
“The reality is that the conservative base has not come back to the Liberal Party since (former prime minister Malcolm) Turnbull was removed from office, but certainly more moderates and swing voters have deserted us,” he wrote.
We’re told this so infuriated Prime Minister Scott Morrison’s loyal foot soldiers they attempted to have him evicted. They had to settle for a one-month benching.
Young Liberals have a habit of saying things that embarrasses their party.
Young Liberal president Harry Stutchbury argued in January that tax breaks for some retirees should be abolished, earning the ire of Counter Terrorism Minister David Elliott.
Search through the archives and we bet you'd find electorally unlikeable positions being put forth from Young Libs from previous years, even now-Premier Gladys Berejiklian.
Robinson, of course, appears to be correct. The Herald's last Ipsos poll recorded a 54-46 two-party preferred vote in favour of Bill Shorten and Labor.
That’s compared to Turnbull’s less disastrous 51-49 performance before he was ousted.
Christmas cheer from the Caymans
Meanwhile, in some good investment news, Tribeca Capital Partner’s newest play, the Global Natural Resources Credit (Cayman) Fund, appears to be working out in a big way.
Tribeca is run by David Aylward and former Macquarie banker Ben Cleary, working with his former colleague Craig Evans and the newly-arrived former head of Macquarie’s commodities trading business in Singapore, Guy Keller.
Other major fund managers — at Will Vicars’ Caledonia Investments and Phil King’s Regal Funds Management — have felt the impact of weaker global share prices.
(We wish them the best for the new year, of course.)
But Tribeca's resource picks have brought in a 16.18 per cent return in the first six months of the fund’s operation.
That was kicked along by a strong October (up 6.2 per cent) and an even better November (up 7 per cent), according to investment updates seen by this column.
The largest investments: a loan to an unidentified listed Canadian cannabis distribution platform and a $40 million facility with ASX-listed lithium miner Tawana Resources.
(Still, a long way from the extremely impressive average 33 per cent return every year since 2004 chalked up by King’s Atlantic Absolute Return fund.)
Investors in the Natural Resources Credit fund have had to put in a minimum $500,000 in May, all locked away for at least three years.
Only another 30 months left, but who’s counting?
