Back in 1993 Guns n’ Roses played at Calder Park Raceway on the outskirts of Melbourne to a crowd of 100,000 both genuine and imitation bogans.  To this day it remains a defining moment of my life.  Not only was it the first time that I saw 100,000 people in one place, or the closest that I will ever get to a Woodstock musical festival but it was also where I first paid $4 bottle of bottled water…over a decade before it became fashionable.

In 2007 Axl Rose and Guns n’ Roses made their first trip back to Australia..albeit with a little bit less luggage, namely Slash, Izzy Straddlin, Duff McKagan and Steven Adler.  In fact, it was just Axl from the original lineup and a bunch of new mates.  That said however, it turned out to be the second best concert I have ever been to just behind the aforementioned Calder Park gig.  Any trepidations were soon dispelled as those first unmistakable, delayed effected notes of Welcome To The Jungle blasted out. 

The bogans were all back too but his time they brought their own kids.  For the parents, the tattoos had faded some, the leather pants were no longer so skin tight but their mullets had stood the test of time.  The next generation of boys proudly bearing their rats tails while the girls donned the traditional dress of the outer burbs, the ugg boot.  Not the beige of course but rather the after 5 Winnie Blue.  

The Country Life…

Opting for a quiet moment of respite before the birth of # 2, my wife and I parked # 1 at the grand-parents and headed for the hills…the Blue Mountains that is. 

The Blue Mountains are only 90 minutes due West out of Sydney…an hour to get through an 8km stretch of Parramatta Road and then about 30 minutes for the other 100km.

The trip itself is not without highlights.  Consider a visit to the Museum of the Uses of Fire located between Mt Druitt and Penrith.  Given its location, tips for arson and the erasing of evidence at the scene of a crime feature strongly.

There are numerous quality, upmarket and romantic lodgings to choose from in the Blue mountains, but we stayed at the Peppers Fairmont Resort.  We stayed there once before many years ago but were lured back by the appeal of a refurbishment and the belief that time heals all wounds.

 

The lack of lighting in the room kept us guessing as to the nature of the refurbishments.  It wasn’t the low pressure Vichy trickle shower, we remembered that from last time.  We were somewhat fortunate however, that we were there when for the first time in six years there was actually more snow outside than on our room’s Nokia television (Nokia is not a name usually associated with the manufacture of quality televisions and rightly so.  It’s rivalled only by household names Palsonic and Sonyo).

 

The Fairmont is to the Blue Mountains what the French Quarter is to Noosa…an opportunity to allow to young kids to enjoy running around sans nappies guilt free to their little hearts content.

 

Facilities at the Fairmont include:

• The predictably repetitive concierge, guaranteed to make you smile as he again points out that it is probably warmer inside the resort than outside.  Had it not been for the fact that everything outside was covered by 10cm of snow I had been prepared to call his bluff.

• The enigmatic reading lounge…plenty of lounges but nothing to read.

• The Games Room of Mystery…you’ll enjoy hours of working out where the billiard balls are kept.

• Breakfast of Wonder – Is it a pancake or just a pikelet in a bain-marie?

Should you feel the need to venture beyond the resort, why not try the local cinema.  Apart from seeing the movie of the day, you’ll be able to marvel at the speed and dexterity of the sole employee that works not just the ticket booth but also the candy bar, the video arcade and the gift shop.  Something that probably would not be that entertaining if were not for the fact that each is located in a different part of the building…

Metcash 101

Metcash:  A case study in what happens when management compensation is linked to EPS rather than share price performance…

When thinking about how CEOs and CFOs ought to be compensated/incentivised, consider this.  What is best for the company and what is best for the share price are sometimes mutually exclusive.

Metcash should be having the run of the ever.  It’s store roll out story is well on track, its store refurbishment program is delivering strong results, it’s winning market share off the larger incumbents, its expanding its gross margin and is getting a free kick as one its biggest competitors, Coles, is going backwards as its owners are looking to sell.  So why then was the share price hammered after its last result?  The result itself was great.  What disappointed was a unnecessarily conservative guidance for the next year.

Management have basically suggested that their good fortune is effectively the result of the problems at Coles.  Their guidance suggests that Coles would be sold tomorrow and regain all the market share it has lost over the last 2 years immediately.  Anyone who watched the private equity players take some 2 years to simply stabilise Sainsbury’s market share in the UK will know the difficulty of the task.  You can see the frustrations of investors.

Those who have met Metcash’s CFO usually develop a uniform view…F@#*!  Unfortunately between him and Andrew Reitzer (CEO), they still run Metcash like a private retailer in downtown Jo’berg and not like the Top 100 company it has become locally. They have done an exceptional job with the business but have shown a degree of conceit towards investors and the share price.  

The outlook looks great for Metcash.  It’s moons are aligning and if you can ignore management’s attempts to communicate with the market and just focus on them as business operators then Metcash is great value.  It’s not hard to imagine that numbers will have to be upgraded at the 30 August AGM.

Drugs in cycling

As if the detractors of cycling needed any more ammunition about the prevalence of drugs in the sport, along comes the World Naked Bike Ride.  What probably started off as one man’s sure-fire way to dissuade others from borrowing his bike, has turned into an expansive, international, political albeit all-occasion lobby group…and they do body paints too!

Tip of the Day: Easy Money…

Background:  Mexican building materials company Rinker is currently trying to buy the Australian building materials player Rinker.  Cemex has offered US$15.85 per Rinker share.  That equates to around A$18.85 which is where the shares are trading.  BUT it has also offered to pay punters A$19.50 for their first 2,000 shares.

Therein lies the arb.  If you buy up to 2,000 Rinker shares now at $18.75 and then simply accept Cemex’s offer, Cemex will pay A$19.50 for your first 2,000 shares.  That’s a quick 4% return to park your money for a couple of weeks…For more info, speak to your friendly, local broker.

A schnitzel by any other name…

Tip of the day:  Schnitzel

If you pronounce that word as snit-shell, shnizzel, snit-sell or even snizzel then this is your lucky day.  No longer will you have to embarrass yourself in a sandwich shop in the same way as the person who naively doesn’t realise that they need to remove the label from the sleeve off new coats.  Let my2020 lead you in the right direction.

Sshhnit-tsel.

That’s it.  That’s all there is too it.  No tricks.  No silent letters.  Surprisingly, it even sounds the way it is actually spelt.  Schnitzel.  Who would have thought?

Next week:  Do you ever disagree with the way somebody pronounces their own name?

Multiculturalism…quel merde!

 I am all for multiculturalism.  In fact, I intentionally go out and eat unpronounceable food just to embrace it…and what do I get?  Reverse racism.  Let me paint a picture.  There is a little Malaysian take-away restaurant near work.  There are about 9 Malaysians working behind the counter that comfortable fits 5.  As per every Asian restaurant in any food court across Australia, the menu was in the form of a collection of fading photos.  Which begs the question, what then do they have in their own country?  Perhaps here, the idea is to reassure locals that beef and vegetables eaten in Malaysia bear a surprisingly striking similarity to our own indigenous beef and vegetables.  Anyway, in my eagerness to soak in the culture and try to fit in – not the easiest task in an Asian food court when you are 6″2 and lacking any hint of a tan - I ordered poached chicken on a bed of rice served with a ginger and chilli sauce in the way I imagine a Malaysian local would…”Hainanese chicken please” I articulated slowly.  The Malaysian girl at the register looked at me, then at the photo that I had been studying.  She turned to kitchen and screached “CHICKEN BREAST!”

The French are worse.  Regardless of whether you are fluent in French, if you are not a Francophile by birth whose direct ancestors have surrendered in at least one major war, you are not deemed worthy of their beautiful language, nor any of its accents.  Just try and order in French.  We did.  “Les moules s’il vous plait”.  “The what?”  “Les moules!”  “You want the mussels?” replied the waitress in a why didn’t you just say so tone…

Empire building…

It took Kerry Packer 31 years, royal commission into his tax dealings, a once-in-a-lifetime Alan Bond, One-Tel, a bout of polio myelitis, a reinvention of cricket, eight heart attacks, a new kidney and death (or as close as you’d ever want to get) to build up his media empire.   It took his son just 18 months to unravel it…