Contract renewal no certainty at CCA

CBD February 23, 2012

There is probably only one annual meeting that Coca-Cola Amatil chief executive Terry Davis finds more nerve-wracking than fronting results briefings or annual shareholder meetings - his end-of-year get-together with the company's chairman, David Gonski.

Despite having had a stellar run as the boss of the fizzy-drink bottler, Davis told yesterday's annual results presentation that he did not take his future at the company as a given.

''This is my 11th annual result presentation for CCA and hopefully not my last,'' Davis said.

When asked to offer more details on his future employment at CCA, Davis noted how his 12-month rolling contract was renewed at the end of each year by Gonski.

''David and I sit down at the end of each year and discuss whether it is appropriate that I continue on as CEO,'' Davis said, adding that this has already been done for 2012.

''The fact that we have done this for 10 years in a row would give some signal we're doing OK.''

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SABMIILLER JIBE

Aside from managing to hold down the same job for the past decade, Davis showed he is also good at maintaining a grudge. Despite his former joint-venture partner SABMiller taking over the brewer Foster's Group late last year, Davis still managed to fire off a few potshots. The Coca-Cola Amatil boss and former Foster's staffer said that he had heard service levels in the Peroni business - part of the Pacific Beverages joint venture sold to Foster's last year - had already decreased since the SABMiller takeover of Foster's.

THUNDERING EXIT

So much for the rumoured $27 million poaching spree funded by the US taxpayer and undertaken by Bank of America Merrill Lynch more than two years ago, when it built up its formidable Australian property team. Another of the ex-UBSers to be poached by the Thundering Herd has called it quits.

Merrill real estate banker Russell Cowley yesterday handed in his resignation after being hired as Standard Chartered's Singapore-based head of Asia real estate/funds and financial sponsors. Cowley joins former Merrill's co-head of property Darren Rehn, who left late last year.

TAKING AFTER DAD

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Of her four children, the Perth businesswoman Janet Holmes a Court identifies her 38-year-old son Paul as most resembling her late corporate raiding husband, Robert.

''I can see an enormous amount of Robert in Paul,'' Holmes a Court said of the son who now runs the family business, Heytesbury. ''The calm, measured speaking approach, the slightly scary … He has mannerisms that are so like his father that I do a double-take sometimes.''

In a show to be aired on ABC television tonight, the Holmes a Courts discuss the chaos and family rift that ensued following the sudden death of Robert Holmes a Court in 1990.

For one, the billionaire did not leave a will.

As for her South Sydney rugby league club part-owning son, Janet said: ''Pete's possibly a bit more like me. A bit of rip and tear.''

GOING GREEK

The administrator of Air Australia, KordaMentha, has picked an apt location for the first creditors' meeting for the collapsed airline. The meeting will be held in the Greek Club in Brisbane on Wednesday at 10am. However, unlike the Greeks, Air Australia is unlikely to get any bail-out packages from its lenders.

BYE, BYE, BYE …

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