If Securities Commission chairman Euan Abernethy is feeling the heat from rays of disapproval beating down on him over the past week, he isn't showing it. But one hopes that he has read an interview with his new Australian counterpart, David Knott, that appeared in the Sydney Morning Herald. Less than a week into the job, and stung by accusations that Australia's corporate regulator is a toothless tiger, Mr Knott has signalled a tougher approach to business baddies. In the past four months, the Australian Securities and Investment Commission has jailed 10 of them. In the past 16 months, it has banned 57 financial advisers and stopped another 47 people from managing firms. If the ASIC is a toothless tiger, what does that make the Securities Commission - a neutered, soft-pawed pussycat with a dribbling problem?
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And still with the commission: the burning question it failed to answer in its report last week was who was Mr Hyslop's broker? His or her name is notably absent from the commission's findings. Its snappily titled Report on Questions Arising From an Inquiry into Trading of the Shares of Fletcher Challenge Limited in May 1999 says Paul Hyslop (or EF for short) made a gross profit of $40,000 from his moment of madness. His actual profit after brokerage fees, his lawyer claimed, was "around $30,000." Perhaps it was really the broker who got away with murder.
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Gossip from Silicon Basin. They say the Coast Bar & Lounge on top of the Hewlett Packard building on Auckland's waterfront is now known as the "dry cleaners." Why? Because there's a constant stream of women dropping by to pick up suits. One Biz-zer stood for 15 minutes in the bar - in his suit - but not one woman took the bait. I guess the women there are clever enough to discern the suits they can "take to the cleaners" from poor, but happily married, undercover journalists.
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It was a rocky courtship, but sectors of business are slowly thawing toward the Prime Minister. In honour of reaching first base together, Helen Clark told a little self-effacing anecdote at a gathering of Auckland business leaders, hosted by the Association of Southeast Asian Nations and the Auckland Chamber of Commerce. As she tells it, her introduction to the Sultan of Brunei at the Apec summit was as the "economic leader of New Zealand" - "which I'm sure you'll all be thrilled to hear," she said, to hearty laughter from the floor.
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A Property Council investment seminar in Auckland descended into an attack on the media from Shayne Hodge, a young upstart from down country. The Wellingtonian, in lambasting the media, took advantage of the fact that many of them were sitting in front of him. His beef? Scribes writing about the merits of property syndication who had the temerity to include the gripes of a vociferous group of Waltus investors opposed to the merger of 29 syndicates, worth $227 million, into one syndicate. Strangely enough, Mr Hodge didn't approve of objective coverage of the issue, especially when his family's vested interests came dangerously close to the spotlight.
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Former Saatchi & Saatchi account director, America's Cup 2000 event director and general ad industry old-timer Tony Thomas is involved with a new venture - bringing Canada's Cirque du Soleil to town. As one bystander pointed out, he's gone from working in a circus to working for a circus.
<i>The biz:</i> Pussy footing round baddies
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