03/01/2023
We are reliably informed that even though this story is over 25 years old that
Peter Joseph [then chairman of BT Australia ] and an executor of Kerry Packer's
last will and testament as well as David Gonski "the most well connected businessman"
in Australia manged to organize a counter offensive and moved a motion for both
Ross Palmer and Fred Smith to be removed from the board for being
"Disharmonius & Disrutptive "
Fred survived by a thin margin however after The Australian Security Commission
adopted an "interim policy " that allowed AMP ~ Phillips and Drew ~ Axiom & BT
to vote in a bloc not exceeding 49% therefore subverting the 19.6% takeover threshold.
Subsequently Peter Stancliffe could not save the crippled mess that ANI had become
and the whole affair was the subject of a 4 Corners expose in 1997 .
A once great company was acquired by Smorgon Steel Ltd ~ who developed a major case of
indigestion taken over by Tubemakers One Steel which then morphed into Arrium Ltd and one
of the largest corporate crashes in Australian Corporate History. .
Not even the largest of corporate doctors in the United States could have fixed that illusion
of corporate governance at it's worst .
Ross Palmer, the Queensland steel-pipe millionaire, has a reputation for unconventional thinking and going with his instincts.
