Billionaire shoppie Frank Lowy may have a cache of accolades from his stellar 60-year career as a businessman, but his grandson has managed to garner an award of considerable note as well.
New York-based Benjamin "Benji" Lowy – the eldest son of Westfield co-chief executive Peter Lowy – has turned his hand to financing theatrical endeavours and in the process produced a play that has picked up a Tony Award.
The Lowy Salpeter Company was a key financial backer of Humans, a play by Stephen Karam and directed by Joe Mantello that picked up the prestigious best play award at the Tonys. The play was also a Pulitzer Prize finalist for the drama award. Now, the Lowy Salpeter Company, which is co-headed by Benji and his mate Adrian Salpeter, is backing the Broadway revival of Cats.
Humans,for those not in the know, is about how an average American family grapples with the burdens of being middle class. Now an unkind person might just suggest that the American-raised Benji, whose grandpa is one of Australia's richest men, might not know a lot about the burdens of being middle class.
But another description for the play explains how the work is about how the family members must deal with "ageing, illness, and a changing economy" – something the Lowys, especially after Frank's horror fall last year at the A-League grand final, know quite a bit about.
Shell-shocked
Some not-so-subtle coercion is being applied to the shell-shocked investors in logistics wreck, McAleese.
Last week, investors were informed that the debt vultures from the SC Lowy consortium have acquired the company's senior debt – with the previous debt holders taking a haircut and fleeing the scene.
And following the Takeover Panel's rejection of an application from rebel shareholder, Havenfresh, we are all set for the corporate equivalent of a double dissolution investor vote.
On August 29, Havenfresh will get to hold the shareholder meeting it has requisitioned to remove most of the McAleese board. On the same day, investors will attend another general meeting to vote on the recapitalisation plan which appears to hold the only hope of survival for the company in its present form.
But what do they care, even in the event of a successful recapitalisation, shareholders' stake in the company will be basically worthless.
Not that you would know it from the McAleese media release which trades on the fact that investors will have the opportunity to pour more money into the group – giving them up to 60 per cent of the revitalised group – and hope and pray things don't go as badly as it did last time.
McAleese reports that if any current directors are removed at the meeting on the board spill, SC Lowy's "debt forbearance" will expire and it might demand repayment of the debt in which case "shareholders are unlikely to receive any value for their existing shares" and would lose any benefit of the recapitalisation.
As we said, this means their current stock would be worth just as much as it would under the recapitalisation plan and they will not face the temptation of throwing good money after bad.
Gloves off
The gloves are off in the stoush between Nick Collishaw and John McBain's Centuria stable and GPT Group for control of the GPT Metro Office Fund with the lawyers tipped, as always, to be the winners.
It centres on a $9 million facilitation deed the two parties signed in June when Centuria made its offer for GPT Metro Fund. Centuria continues to assert that in entering into a similar agreement with Growthpoint Properties Australia, GPT is in breach of the Centuria facilitation deed.
In response Bob Johnston's GPT maintains that it has not breached its obligations under the Centuria facilitation deed and has notified Centuria there is no breach to remedy and Centuria has no right to terminate the Centuria facilitation deed. The tussle started when GPT Group sold its 13 per cent stake in the metro fund to a new, improved offer from Growthpoint Properties, and also signed a deed facilitation contract, which tilted the balance against Centuria. No doubt this battle has a few more twists and turns.
