Warren Buffett, Berkshire Hathaway's Freo Group crane company in strife; Perth Bears fan Joe Hockey in enemy territory
More troubles at Warren Buffett's Australian outpost, as crane major Freo Group loses more senior executives and closes a key regional branch after contract losses.
The last year has seen a fair bit of turmoil at Freo, a subsidiary of Berkshire Hathaway's giant Marmon industrial and construction group, which bills itself as Australia's biggest crane hire and logistics company.
Perhaps not for that much longer, the way things are going.
Freo Group has been run by Canadian Marmon executive Tim Macleod since February, after the quickfire departures of former chief executives Sven Glade and Steve Rogers in only two years. It also lost chief financial officer Joseph Jeevaraj in February, and since then has shed its general manager of strategy, health and safety boss, and national recruitment manager.
The latest to depart, Margin Call hears, is commercial manager Thomas van Jaarsfeld, who quit only a few months after taking a promotion into the role and moving to Western Australia from the east coast.
A senior contracts manager has also left the business, and we're told at least one other executive is out on indefinite leave amid the turmoil. That's on top of a broader restructuring round that involved a suite of voluntary redundancies.
Freo has also rolled over its board after the unfortunate passing of long-term director Emmanouel Katsikandarakis in March.
For three months, the company and its immediate parent Marmon Construction Services Australia had only a single director, US-based Tim Benjamin, ahead of the appointment of Marmon's Canada-based executive Jens Lanker and new Freo Group CFO Adam Botica at the end of June.
It's all getting a bit tetchy inside the tent at Freo Group, Margin Call is told, with some departing staff forced to wrangle over repayment of expenses and even struggling to reclaim personal effects from their offices.
On top of that Freo is in the midst of shuttering its Kalgoorlie branch after losing a major contract on the mining city's Golden Mile.
Tough times in the construction industry, perhaps, amid the collapse of a number of major building companies and civil contractors across the country over the last year.
Except that key competitors such as ASX-listed Boom Logistics seem to be doing OK, judging by a May upgrade to its full-year profit guidance.
And smaller local competitors are revelling in Freo Group's troubles, snapping up senior staff from the crane major and happily poaching contracts said to be worth more than $50m in recent times.
Could it, perhaps, be a rare misstep in strategy from the Sage of Omaha's company?
Industry sources suggest that might be the case, with Freo Group following the lead of its US parent in hiking prices and trying to focus on extending work with major clients – the biggest of which is BHP – and ditching short-term crane hire to smaller clients.
Except that's where you can make a bit of cash from equipment idled from bigger contracts. And the price hikes are largely to blame for contract losses.
It's all a bit grim for Freo Group's remaining staff, amid persistent rumours the company is being prepared for sale. They might need to get on with it, though, while there's something left to sell. Rare run west
Say what you will about former treasurer Joe Hockey, arguably the North Sydney Bears rugby club's most notable fan, but he's not afraid to enter the enemy's den.
It's hard to move in Perth's tight-knit business, political and media circles without tripping over a conflicting interest or two. So it was with some amusement that Margin Call noted that Hockey will be one of the headline speakers at a 'resources showcase' run by Perth's only daily newspaper.
The West Australian – owned by Kerry Stokes' Seven West media, which has the broadcast rights to the AFL – has been no supporter of rugby league's latest attempt to establish a beachhead in the AFL state via the Perth Bears.
The paper greeted WA Premier Roger Cook's announcement of state government support for a new NRL club in Perth with a 'bad news bears' headline, and plenty of critical coverage – not helped by the fact that former West editor Anthony De Ceglie was announced as the club's inaugural chief executive.
A sold-out State of Origin rugby match in Perth was greeted by the paper with only minimal coverage, and tensions are still riding high.
Hockey was recently announced as a member of the Perth Bears' founding board.
And yet the former federal treasurer joins BHP and Rio Tinto iron ore bosses Tim Day and Simon Trott as one of the headline speakers at the resources event run by the newspaper in August. He'll be on stage at a lunchtime event with Caterpillar's global technology vice president Corey Wurtzbacher. Curiously enough, Stokes' Seven Group Holdings' core business segment involves selling Caterpillar mining equipment.
Hockey is there in his role as the founder of advisory firm Bondi Partners, and the former Australian ambassador to the United States – no argument that his views will be of interest to the crowd. But still a slightly odd choice, given the state's main trading relationship is with China.
Hockey's short term as federal treasurer doesn't rate a mention on The West's promotional material. Hardly a surprise, mind you, given his fractious relationship with the state when in the job largely consisted of refusing to stack the GST distribution system in WA's favour.
A bit of influence from former West Australian premier Mark McGowan, long a favourite of the WA paper and now on the Bondi Partners roster, might have helped things along.
And perhaps his presence will also enable a bit of outreach on behalf of the Perth Bears at the same time? Particularly if he heads west bearing a promise of a generous donation from the NRL to the Seven-backed Telethon fundraising event when it comes around in October – traditionally the best way back into Stokes' good books in Perth. Nick Evans Margin Call Columnist and Resource Writer
Nick Evans has covered the Australian resources sector since the early days of the mining boom in the late 2000s. He joined The Australian's business team from The West Australian newspaper's Canberra bureau, where he covered the defence industry, foreign affairs and national security for two years. Prior to that Nick was The West's chief mining reporter through the height of the boom and the slowdown that followed.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
ABC News
an hour ago
- ABC News
North Sydney Council pushed to the financial edge by pool redevelopment
North Sydney Olympic Pool will re-open next year, after a redevelopment that's $60 million over budget and three years late. Adam Harvey looks at what went wrong.
SBS Australia
an hour ago
- SBS Australia
Is this the solution for rising food shopping costs?
As the cost of fruit and vegetables sold at Australia's main supermarkets continue to increase, most households across the nation are feeling the pinch in their back pocket. In an effort to save money, many Australians are searching for shopping alternatives that exist outside the realm of the local supermarket. One of the fastest-growing alternatives is Box Divvy , a community-run social enterprise that launched in 2019 and now boasts 337 hubs across New South Wales and the ACT. Soon, the organisation will be launching in Victoria. So how does it work? Picture a neighbourhood co-op, powered by an app. Each hub — often run from a local garage or free community hall — brings together 15-40 households who pool their weekly fruit, vegetable and packaged grocery orders. Sometimes, the co-op is comprised of families and friends who know each other while other hubs are made up of local community members who are strangers but just want fresh, cheap produce. A Box Divvy 'hub'. Co-founder of Box Divvy, Anton van den Berg, explains that every week, the group puts in an order. Not everyone will get the exact food they want as orders are usually the result of a group consensus. But, for example, if enough people request bok choy, then bok choy gets ordered. The idea is about ordering produce in bulk and reaping the savings that result. A bulk delivery is sent to the hub, which is managed by someone in their neighbourhood who gets paid for their time and effort. Members then help to divide the produce up. 'On average, our food is cheaper than what's available in the supermarket," says van den Berg. Our apples are typically under $4 a kilo compared with $6 a kilo in supermarkets. Our oranges are $2 a kilo versus $5 a kilo. 'But it doesn't mean we are the cheapest on everything. Supermarkets tend to mark specific [singular] foods down like strawberries because that one item gets people through the door. On the other hand, [although our price of strawberries might be the same as a supermarket], our ones are better quality.' Two of three co-founders of Box Divvy: Jayne Travers-Drapes and Anton van den Berg. Van den Berg says that members can typically save around 30 percent, on average, across their total produce bill compared to supermarkets. 'We're also paying farmers up to 60 cents in the dollar for their produce. We believe that's sometimes double compared to what the supermarkets pay many farmers.' The kind of produce offered is also culturally diverse, reflecting consumer demand and the multicultural makeup of farmers. 'We usually offer a broad range of European, Arabic and Asian ingredients, which covers a lot of what many people tend to cook.' Cost and community benefits Box Divvy's efficiency lies in its streamlined logistics. Instead of packing individual orders, produce arrives in bulk and is divvied on-site. Beyond making food shopping cheaper however, Box Divvy is also creating community. 'Members say their social circles have expanded after joining a hub as they get to meet their neighbours and exchange recipes. It's said that most people join for the low price of quality produce and they stay for the food community.' The model also offers some health benefits. Research from Western Sydney University found absolute increases in the number of fruit and vegetable serves eaten per person, after joining Box Divvy. 'The percentage increase across all groups was around 30 per cent but much higher among those who were very food insecure. That's huge for household nutrition and long-term health.' Alternative solutions for the cost of living crisis Another supermarket alternative is a produce box. With this model, consumers go online to order a box full of fruits, vegetables and even meat individually from an organisation that works directly with farmers. Farmers Pick is one example of such a model. Boxes often utilise excess produce that supermarkets reject due to appearance, although they are of great quality. On their website, they state that their produce boxes are up to 30 per cent cheaper than the supermarkets. There's also the Sydney-based Organic Buyers Group , which was started in Randwick over 20 years ago by Danielle Northey. 'We're just a group of residents buying fresh organic produce direct from a wholesaler every week,' Northey explains. Operating from community halls and urban farms like Pocket City Farms, the group uses bulk ordering to bring down the cost of certified organic fruit and vegetables. Through membership, people gain access to organic fruit and vegetables without having to pay an additional mark-up for organic food. "We can absolutely guarantee that our organic food is the same price as buying non-organic fresh fruits and vegetables at the supermarket." The process is low-tech. Members pre-order and when the produce arrives, they help divvy it into baskets. Kids join in. Recipes are swapped. 'It's community-building at its finest. Everyone contributes a little bit in ordering or packing, so no one person gets burnt out. Northey estimates the price differentiation between organic food and non-organic may be around 20-60 per cent. "We do our price checks to make sure that we can deliver organic food, at non-organic prices. In doing so, we always come in at the same cost or slightly under the cost of non-organic fruit and vege from the supermarket. 'We're making organic accessible, without the plastic, the markup, or the food miles.' The food is not about perfect customisation. 'You get what you get – fresh and good value – and you don't get upset. Maybe one week you get bok choy instead of kale because that's what's available. This model of buying suits people who are flexible, adventurous in the kitchen, and excited to eat what's in season. One week, Northey got fresh fennel in her box — something she'd never buy herself. 'Another member suggested making fennel frond pesto. It was delicious, and my teenage kids loved it. There are also many people, especially those living in share houses, who often band together with neighbours and friends informally to take turns to do their produce shopping in bulk at Paddy's Markets in Flemington, which ends up not only saving money, but also time – as each person or household would only need to go do the shopping once every few weeks. It suits people who are flexible, adventurous in the kitchen, and excited to eat what's in season. 'Why battle crowded aisles and inflated prices when you could do your shop with friendly faces, fresh produce, and a sense of purpose?,' Northey asks. So next time you get bill shock at your local supermarket with organic or non-organic produce, just remember there may be other ways to shop. All you have to do is think alternatively and look around for a food group in your area.
ABC News
2 hours ago
- ABC News
The Australian National University is stepping back from humanities research — should funding go to the regions instead? - ABC Religion & Ethics
The proposals by the Australian National University (ANU) to disestablish some of its most globally respected research centres in the humanities, arts and social sciences have led some to wonder whether the university remains worthy of its reputation as a 'truly national university' or of continuing to receive the National Institutes Grant. There is no doubt that government policies — particularly the Job Ready Graduate Scheme — are causing extensive direct and long-term damage to the ANU and every other university in the country, as well as to the nation's future leaders. These considerations have led Australian students to pursue graduate study overseas and disincentivised international students from applying to Australian universities. However, the main sticking point regarding the immediate cuts to the ANU is the approximately $200 million National Institutes Grant that the federal government gives the ANU annually to support its national mission. No cuts to the National Institutes Grant have been reported. It continues to be a privileged source of funding to insulate key research functions from the fluctuations of student enrolments and popularity to ensure sovereign intellectual infrastructure for the nation. It makes little sense that the areas put forward for disestablishment by the College of Arts and Social Sciences are those that have historically been associated with this special grant. From the Research School of Social Sciences through to the Humanities Research Centre, they have routinely been put forward as key evidence in support of the College's annual claim for its relatively small slice of the National Institutes Grant — until this year, that is. The College's proposal to cut areas that deliver on a reliable source of income in a precarious funding environment is inexplicable and directly imperils its capacity to deliver on these functions of sovereign importance, as asserted in Senator David Pocock's senate motion. Betting on a better future? It is appropriate to invoke the language of leagues tables given the high levels of interest and investment paid by universities to international rankings. The language of 'relegation', moreover, signals the point that rather than just being an own goal, the ANU's cuts will result in losses to the national community, including those who live outside the 'Canberra bubble'. The whole league and its future stars are at risk. The language in such headlines also draws attention to the stubborn stereotype in which 'regional' is synonymous with second-rate. This provides an opportunity to reconsider the very real contributions that regional universities make to the national interest and raise new questions about what we expect of cultural leadership in 2025. Rather than being a prescription for change, what we would like to offer here is a thought exercise. As one of us has described elsewhere, the National Institutes Grant was endowed to the ANU in 1946 and reflected the ambitions created by a homogenous leadership group. But how might its conditions of award differ if it was created today? Would it be equally bound to the idea that Australia should have one national university or might it prefer a more distributed and inclusive model of cultural leadership to serve the nation? From margins to engines We write from opposite ends of the country. One of us (Kylie Message) leads the ANU Humanities Research Centre (HRC), which is facing closure after more than fifty years of service to the nation. The other (Victoria Kuttainen) directs the newly established Roderick Centre for Australian Literature and Creative Writing at James Cook University, based in the tropics of northern Australia. From these locations — one long considered the centre, the other long regarded as the margin — we witness the same pattern: the steady erosion of cultural infrastructure in a university sector still organised around prestige economies and outdated hierarchies. We also recognise the argument put forward by the Australian Academy of Humanities to protest the ANU's plan for the humanities and social sciences: Now is not the time to reduce our national humanities capabilities. Global unrest, the impact of AI on society, wealth inequality, climate change, distrust in democratic institutions — all call for independent and informed Australian thinking. The humanities help us to understand ourselves and our neighbours, and the changes our times require. We argue that meaningful innovation for the long-term survival of the sector won't come from within the fortressed walls of Group of Eight universities. It will come from new alignments — between regional need and national responsibility; between the civic mission of universities and the communities they serve. In other words, the kind of work the HRC has led with distinction and that regional centres now urgently need, now more than ever. Systemic cuts lead to cultural collapse Current threats to the arts and humanities at the ANU are by no means isolated. The sector has been described as under 'sustained political attack', with more than a dozen universities faced with restructuring — including Macquarie University, University of Tasmania, Western Sydney University, University of Canberra and the University of Wollongong. A symptom of these cuts are job losses: more than 1,000 are being cut or have already gone from Australian universities. Nowhere is the crisis more visible than in regional Australia. James Cook University, Charles Sturt University, Southern Cross University and the University of Tasmania were already grappling with disappearing funding, bloated workloads and crumbling staff morale long before the nation's treasured metropolitan institutions sent up the distress signal. While city-based institutions might cushion the blow with larger cohorts, international student pipelines, stronger branding or — in the case of the ANU — using the National Institutes Grant, regional universities have been absorbing the shock for years. Their situation has worsened more recently by metropolitan universities seeking to meet equity targets by recruiting students out of communities through full scholarships that local universities cannot match. This approach may afford benefits to individuals, but stands to further hollow-out regional universities and communities through brain drain, and erode the link between generic university fields and more localised content and research that regional universities carry out as part of their civic mission. Creative capacity beyond the centre There already exists a clear record demonstrating the extent to which the contraction in opportunities for research and training in the humanities, arts and social sciences has triggered a crisis in the pipeline of future arts workers in regional Australia. But the consequences that increased costs have on local education providers — combined with factors such as the brain drain of regional students to the cities — are poorly understood, even within our own sector. In 2024, the question 'Are the Humanities in Crisis?' was asked at a national panel convened by one of our peak disciplinary associations. Panellists, none of whom represented a regional university, responded in the negative. It was the Humanities Research Centre that publicly challenged this view, pointing out what had been ignored: that the humanities are in crisis — and most sharply in the regions. Aerial photo of James Cook University's Smithfield campus in Cairns, Queensland. (iTraveller / iStock / Getty Images) The Humanities Research Centre's challenge took the form of a collaboration. Together with partners at the Roderick Centre at James Cook University — which has expertise in building interdisciplinary programs connecting literature, climate science mental health, Indigenous storytelling and regional development — we co-convened a national conference on Communities, Arts, Wellbeing in Cairns. The event worked with and through regional experts to determine how to support their work and its continued development. This conference was not intended to be a gesture of outreach or a response to a misunderstanding; rather, it sought to put into practical effect the insistence of Amitav Ghosh that the humanities must itself transform to meet the urgency of the planetary crisis. Accordingly, we suggested that if the academy is to understand what transformation looks like, it needs to look to the regions — because it is here, at the margins of policy and power, that the future arrives first. Such collaboration is rare but necessary, especially for places where climate disruption (floods, fire, coral bleaching), economic precarity (post-mining transitions) and social inequality are not future hypotheticals but daily conditions. We know that 70 per cent of the nation's export earnings come from the resources and agriculture of the north, but that the GDP returns flow south. Although policy is made in Canberra and capital cities, the profits are extracted from elsewhere. The Humanities Research Centre is one of the few institutions that genuinely crosses this line in bridging region and centre to work beyond the bubble of institutional self-interest. Reimagining national research infrastructure Partnerships like the one between the Humanities Research Centre at the ANU and the Roderick Centre at James Cook University have been possible because of the contributions it makes in meeting the remit of the National Institutes Grant. For over fifty years, the HRC's work has executed this by supporting research of national importance beyond what is typically achievable through faculty-based or discipline-specific funding. It is also precisely the kind of work that cannot survive in an environment where universities are stripped for parts and academics are rendered disposable. Which brings us back to our initial hypothetical: If ANU is no longer able or interested in fulfilling its national obligations by means of this small centre, then perhaps it is time for the federal government to reallocate — or re-imagine — that component of the National Institutes Grant . Indeed, if we set logistics and legislation aside, a legitimate case may exist to untether the grant from a single institution for the benefit of many others. An alternative might be to construct a competitive scheme open to universities to apply for funding based on initiatives that meet contemporary national priorities — such as place-based collaboration, First Nations leadership, interdisciplinary resilience and deep community engagement, especially in and through the regions. Public value, not just historical prestige, would become the benchmark. Allocated in cycles, the grant could be assessed on how effectively the host institution enables others: coordinating, scaffolding and amplifying the national research capacity of less-resourced partners, not least with and in regional Australia and more remote areas worldwide. This grant would be awarded to a host (or node) institution that would coordinate a national network of universities to support research training and development activities that individual universities cannot financially support. It would be based on the premise that an effective network can produce more than a simple sum of its parts. Our hypothetical arose in response to nation-wide conversations with partners and stakeholders about the ANU's proposal to disestablish the Humanities Research Centre. We wondered if the College of Arts and Social Science's withdrawal of support for a centre that has made significant contributions to the university's justification of funding for over half-a-century indicates an endemic problem, which points to the need for systemic sectoral change. Maybe it is time for all options to be laid out on the table, including the possibility that the future of Australian arts and humanities should not lie in the capital, but beyond — through a networked approach to supporting the regions and communities that are already doing this work, often with minimal support, against the odds. Maybe that's where we should be investing. Kylie Message is Professor of Public Humanities and director of the Humanities Research Centre at the Australian National University. She is the author of books including Museums and Social Activism: Engaged Protest, Collecting Activism, Archiving Occupy Wall Street and Museums and Racism. Victoria Kuttainen is Associate Professor of English and Writing and director of the Roderick Centre for Australian Literature and Creative Writing at James Cook University. She is member of LabNorth, a research initiative investigating the state of the arts in regional northern Australia. She edited the Australian Humanities Review's Special Forum on the Regional Humanities, and is the author of Unsettling Stories: Settler Postcolonialism and the Short Story Composite and co-author (Susann Liebich and Sarah Galletly) of The Transported Imagination: Australian Interwar Magazines and the Geographical Imaginaries of Colonial Modernity.
