Long arm of ASX law is coming up short

For those who need reminding, the collapse of Opes Prime revealed that some figures with alleged underworld connections have a fondness for the penny dreadful end of the Australian sharemarket.

Meanwhile, just two people have been sentenced for insider trading in Australia since 2004 - a part-time forklift mechanic on Centrelink benefits and a PR executive who told family and friends to buy $150,000 worth of shares in Aristocrat Leisure.

Little wonder that the ASX's performance in regulating the market is under fire. RiskMetrics has recommended a protest vote against incumbent ASX director Russell Aboud at the AGM, but the ASX is sticking by its man. It says a vote against Aboud "simply because he is the first of the incumbents listed on the proxy form" is "ill-considered".

Fair cop, but the ASX had better come up with some better evidence that it is doing its job. The best it can muster is to restate the Australian Securities and Investments Commission's annual assessment of the ASX's compliance.

"For the sixth consecutive year, ASIC gave ASX a clean bill of supervisory health, concluding that ASX is adequately supervising the market, and managing any conflicts between its commercial and supervisory operations," the ASX declared yesterday.

Sadly, the sentiment about town is that perennially under-staffed and under-funded ASIC would struggle to catch a cold, let a alone a crook.

Originate sin

FIRST comes the axe. Then comes the pep talk.

After ANZ chief executive Mike Smith played bad cop on Tuesday, saying he would slash five out of every 12 middle management jobs in some departments at head office, it was up to Alex Thursby to play good cop with a combined meeting of the Melbourne and Sydney teams to explain the changes.

Thursby is group managing director of Asia Pacific and acting group managing director of institutional banking - the department once run by CEO hopeful Steve Targett.

Thursby's meeting and conference call was a full hour of productivity down the gurgler, Full Disclosure hears, but at least a few listening in by phone in Melbourne managed a nap after a restless night of sleep - the talk was peppered with jargon about ANZ's renewed desire to "originate, warehouse and distribute", which are words from the Targett play-book.

Meanwhile, there have been a few serendipitous choices of speaker at the Responsible Banking and Credit Stress seminars organised for Sydney and Melbourne next week.

Listed as keynote speakers are representatives of ANZ, which knows a thing or two about credit stress, and also

GE Money - which has been stung by the corporate watchdog this year for harassing customers over their debts.

Full Disclosure wonders if the GE reps should be speaking or listening?

Useless PR release #1

THANKS to Zaffyre International, a self-proclaimed "international strategic leadership consultancy", for telling us that listed Australian companies will churn through more chief executives amid "tumultuous market conditions and slow economic growth".

Who would have thought that a plunging sharemarket, slowing economy, global credit crunch, soaring oil prices and high interest rates would be bad for business, and lead to more CEOs getting the boot.

Zaffyre's report is based on the statistic that 21% of the top 500 companies across Asia Pacific lost their CEOs during 2007, up from 15% in 2005 - and, it seems, little else.

Useless PR release #2

THE saying "beware Greeks bearing gifts" can be traced to Virgil's Aeneid of 19 BC. An updated version would be "beware authors with a book to flog". The latest book-spruiker on the scene is Peter Walsh, of Sunbury, who makes the lofty claim of being Oprah Winfrey's personal "organiser".

Which must rank a notch or two below personal chef, personal assistant, personal trainer, personal shopper, nanny, butler and pool boy

in the Hollywood entourage pecking order.

Walsh's PR team has made much of the Oprah link this week, while pushing his tome on the topic of clutter.

But Walsh's spin doctors may want to try a different tack, after website catchoftheday.com.au ran a poll asking: "Do you really care what Oprah Winfrey thinks?".

The no vote won by a ratio of 9:1. Oh, and the Melbourne lunch to promote Walsh's book ran late. And behind schedule. Maybe they'll organise it better next time.