Pokies Boss Bought In Glamour Drive
Sydney Morning Herald
Monday August 18, 2003
James Chessell checks out the neighbours.
Just when you thought things couldn't get any weirder at Aristocrat we find ourselves pondering an image of Jennifer Lopez popping over to Little Dessie Randall's place to borrow a cup of sugar.
It seems the two were almost neighbours.
When Aristocrat's acting boss, David Creary, announced last week that his predecessor's two former residences were being sold he didn't provide much in the way of detail.
We knew Randall and wife Vivienne divided their time between Bloomfield Hills Drive, Henderson, Nevada, and Esther Road, Balmoral, and that they'd spent a fair bit on the bare essentials (a $14,170 mahogany pianola, $379.50 worth of koi carp, an essential $19.05 leg rope).
We also knew the carp, among other things, form part of legal actions Randall and Aristocrat are publicly aiming at each other.
But what we didn't realise and we hope the real estate agents do a better job at pointing this out than Creary is that celebrities are thick on the ground on Bloomfield Hills Drive. Real ones too.
The Randalls lived at No 16 and for most of the year the Las Vegas Sun has run a story that J-Lo and acting fiance Affleck were interested in buying No 2.
The paper conceded in late July that the Lopezes never did buy the 790 sq m mansion but went on to suggest Lord of the Dance's Michael Flatley had been spotted having a look.
It appears Bloomfield residents have been keeping the removalists busy.
Dessie is gone, of course, while Franco Dragone, the Belgium director best known for his work with the Cirque du Soleil, recently vacated a different abode.
And when Anna Kournikova is in town, she reportedly stays with a friend on the same street.
Riff raff kept out
Although it's not quite Beverly Hills, Bloomfield Hills Drive isn't far behind.
The residences are in the Anthem Country Club development, an exclusive guarded and gated community within a larger, slightly less exclusive gated community.
The kind of money needed to survive in such a place is not for the faint hearted.
At last count, a year's equity membership at the country club set you back about $US49,500 ($75,000) before green fees. The gym is far more reasonable at a mere $US2,500 a month.
According to court documents, the Randalls ``purchased" 16 Bloomfield Hills ``on or about" July 29, 2002.
The 2002 annual report, like Teary Creary, doesn't really do the neighbourhood justice, but details a $2.6 million ``secured loan" to Randall.
``The secured loan is interest only and repayable on sale of the residence or on the departure of DH Randall from the company," it notes.
As for Dessie, he has this to say in the chief executive officer's comments in the same report: ``Globalisation remains a critical part of Aristocrat's strategy and we will continue to expand in international markets.
``I have moved to Las Vegas to be more centrally located for global customers as part of the implementation of this strategy."
Joe's digging here
With things looking up at home, is Diamond Joe Gutnick turning his back on Canada?
For some time Gutnick's main hope of remaining a legitimate mining entrepreneur lay in the chilly fields of northern Canada and his not inconsiderable investment in diamond explorer Tahera Corp.
While Gutnick Resources, Johnson's Well, Astro Mining and Quantum Resources have done little else but rack up debts in recent years, Tahera did show signs of life.
In May 2002, the shares hit C40c when BHP starting drilling Tahera's Ranch Lake kimberlite as part of a buy-in.
This activity briefly valued Gutnick's 30 per cent stake, held through Edensor Nominees, at $C40 million (about $48 million in those days).
These days Gutnick, who remains chairman of Tahera for the time being, holds about 2.5 per cent of the issued shares which were worth C14c a pop at Friday's close.
So with eight kids still at home and some of the proceeds from the Yeshiva spat with his sister to go towards prospective ground in Western Australian Gutnick Resources is drilling again it's not surprising to hear the lure of the Arctic ain't what it used to be.
TK et al bow out
``The fat lady hasn't sung yet" noted a brave Trevor Kennedy last week not long after the Takeovers Panel declined yet another application in the PowerTel dog fight.
It appears Kennedy and the rest of his Roslyndale Syndicate Geoff Cousins and Sam Gazal can discern an aria of some description and have given up on a new tilt for PowerTel's $330 million network.
At least the final price for the Hong Kong-based Telecom Venture Group won't be cheap.
The investment firm was forced to pay $30 million for WilTel's 47 per cent stake, which matched Roslyndale's bid for the entire company.
The final cost for Roslyndale isn't known but it might be slightly more than the lunch at Machiavelli in May where the trio plotted their imminent bid.
Boofhead brokers
Aussie Rules and Bleak City's stockbrokers enjoy something of a shared history.
Ord Minnett dealers fondly recall sitting next to former Footscray (now Western Bulldogs) star Simon Beasley after a lunchtime training session and it's hard not to forget Steve ``Sticks" Kernahan, the Carlton captain, in his glory days as the floor operator for Pembroke in the 1980s.
And the tradition lives on with Essendon captain James Hird working for the venerable Melbourne-turned-New-York institution JBWere, or JBWeird as the footy players call it.
The House of Were has broken ranks in Sydney by signing up the Swannies' 2000 and 2001 best and fairest player, Paul Williams, who will join another former Swan, Wayne Schwass.
CBD is not sure if Williams will be let loose on clients but he will called upon to press the flesh in the boardroom.
Let's just hope the money men don't decide to list either of the teams in a hurry, as many old timers are still reeling at what happened when North Melbourne, now the Kangaroos, did that.
The club listed on the Hobart second board in February 1987 in a $3 million float underwritten by the now famous Tricontinental Bank. It lasted until 1991 when North Melbourne was delisted, at its own request.
© 2003 Sydney Morning Herald
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