All eyes may be on Kyle Sandilands and Jackie “O” Henderson this week, as the former radio co-hosts prepare to have their cases heard by the Federal Court on Friday morning. But the dual legal matters make up just one battle faced by the duo’s bosses at their former parent company, ARN Media.
The KIIS FM owner has come under mounting scrutiny ahead of what promises to be a blockbuster annual general meeting next month, when ARN chief executive Michael Stephenson and chairman Hamish “The Hammer” McLennan will face investors for the first time since the spectacular bust-up. And the company’s executive team is already coming under fire.
In a report to investors obtained by CBD, the influential proxy advisor CGI Glass Lewis took aim at Stephenson’s pay packet, which clocks in at a cool $1.1 million. Not bad for a company with a share price in the toilet!
Glass Lewis suggested Stepho is simply being paid too much relative to the company’s plummeting value, and that his fixed pay remains “materially above” the median of about $812,075 seen across the ASX’s top 250-300 companies. (ARN fell out of the top 500 companies in March.)
“On balance, the level of CEO pay is considered excessive relative to the company’s current market positioning and performance, and support for the remuneration report is not considered warranted at this time,” the firm said in its report, very diplomatically.
ARN, through a spokesman, declined to comment.
It’s not the first time the radio bosses have come under fire for being overpaid. Glass Lewis had previously held concerns about the $1.2 million pay packet awarded to Stepho’s predecessor, Ciaran Davis, whose departure was announced last year.
But beyond pay, the proxy firm was otherwise pretty supportive – particularly so when you consider ARN remains at war with its marquee talent over roughly $160 million, and doesn’t know how big a hit it expects to take from the action.
One crucial showing of support was that afforded to McLennan, the same chairman that Sandilands referred to in a recent interview as being responsible for both signing and taking away his eye-watering deal, who is up for re-election at next month’s AGM.
The Hammer managed to secure Glass Lewis’ support for re-election next month despite adding yet another board role to his plate just weeks ago, and being the subject of rumblings from ARN’s highest-profile shareholders over the company’s handling of the Kyle and Jackie O saga.
Last time this masthead got a sense of the ARN leadership team’s popularity among shareholders, the mood was foreboding.
There was the proverbial “writing on the wall”. Plans to “attend the AGM”. A lot remains in the air for ARN as things stand, including the company’s reason for being. But one thing we’re left feeling pretty confident about is that, come the AGM on May 7, the circus is coming to town, with The Hammer cast as ringmaster.
The Oz photo desk gets caught short
Having axed pretty much its entire picture desk years ago, it was no surprise to see The Australian caught short when Ben Roberts-Smith drove out of Silverwater prison last Friday.
What did raise eyebrows – not least among their own former photographers – was the spectacular image shot by our talented Herald colleague Sam Mooy, which ran on the front page of the national broadsheet’s weekend edition, with credit and all.
Of course, our editors aren’t perfect either, but we couldn’t help being amused by the move, given the fervour with which the national broadsheet has written about this column’s own recent photo failure: a photo of Rupert Murdoch leaving his 95th birthday in New York. (We acknowledge the irony – but at least we ended up paying!)
The Australian’s story, which was written by NSW editor Stephen Rice, led off news of BRS being granted bail pending his war crime trial and continued on to page six, where we think we found the answer to our question.
On page six, the story was accompanied by a different photo shot by Liam Mendes, a journalist at The Oz. We can only guess Mooy’s was just better.
But our efforts to find out more turned up nothing. It was crickets from the newspaper’s editor, Michelle Gunn, who didn’t pick up our call or return our text. A spokesman for News Corp Australia didn’t have anything to add either.
Joe Hockey and Mathias Cormann rendezvous in Paris
It’s nice to see old dogs learn new tricks. Such was our reaction to seeing former federal treasurer-turned-Trump-whisperer Joe Hockey pictured with former finance minister Mathias Corman, now secretary-general of the OECD, make time for a rendezvous in Paris this week.
The two men were pictured walking the streets of Paris early on Tuesday morning, in photos posted to Instagram by Hockey captioned “Paris catchup”; “Still chatting budgets”. Later, “But it’s Paris … ”, and finally, “Great mates forever”. And not a cigar in sight!
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John Buckley is a CBD columnist for The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age.Connect via email.
Fiona Byrne is the CBD columnist for The Age and The Sydney Morning Herald.Connect via email.