Baillieu bails out of family company

An examination of corporate records by The Age shows that Mr Baillieu has transferred his long-standing stake in the family company Mutual Trust Pty Ltd to his brother and company director Ian Baillieu.

Mutual Trust has also been deleted from the parliamentary register of interests, along with potentially sensitive holdings in companies including Woolworths, a major owner of poker machines in Victoria.

But as he did during the 2006 campaign, Mr Baillieu continues to resist pressure, including from within the Liberal Party, to fully distance himself from his personal financial affairs by establishing a blind trust.

Instead, Mr Baillieu insists, as he did in 2006, that a third party manager now looks after his affairs. He has again refused to identify the manager or detail how this arrangement works.

Questioned last night, Mr Baillieu's office would only offer that his shareholdings were "externally managed" and that "investment decisions are not made by Mr Baillieu".

However, for the first time Mr Baillieu confirmed that Mutual Trust did not provide the third-party management role.

Mutual Trust was set up by members of Mr Baillieu's grandfather's generation to provide financial services to the clan. It now provides services to a wider group of wealthy Melburnians.

Last night Mr Baillieu did not respond to repeated questions about his reasons for selling out of Mutual Trust.

The company was a political headache for him during the 2006 campaign and is again in Labor's sights. The Age understands Labor has hired corporate sleuths to probe Mr Baillieu's business arrangements, especially in Mutual Trust.

In 2006 Labor dubbed Mr Baillieu the "Toff from Toorak" and made much of his family fortune and extensive personal shareholdings, then valued at $3.8 million.

Labor has recently started an undeclared "class war" claiming it looks after working classes while the Liberals represent the rich and is again intent on making the Baillieu family finances a target.

Legislation now before Parliament nicknamed the Baillieu Bill proposes a string of changes to financial disclosure requirements for MPs that appear aimed at the Opposition Leader. The changes include requiring MPs to detail not only shares but the number held in each company to ensure conflicts of interest are avoided, and that MPs "devote their time and talents to carrying out their public duties".

Labor is also planning a campaign claiming that Mr Baillieu would be a "part-time premier" because his many business interests would divert him from government duties and leave him with constant conflict-of-interest dilemmas in cabinet.

At one point in 2006 Mr Baillieu held shares in 44 companies. Since then his portfolio has shrunk to 31 companies, as of April this year.

The current value of Mr Baillieu's share portfolio is unclear. But the extended Baillieu family routinely makes the annual BRW Rich List, and for 2010 was valued at $453 million, up from $280 million five years ago. The list takes in the wider Baillieu fortune, to which Ted Baillieu has only limited claim.

He has often been reported as having an interest in the lucrative Eynesbury housing development West of Melbourne. But Mr Baillieu has neither a direct nor indirect stake in the project and last night a spokesman insisted that he had never, and would never, earn a cent from it.

Mr Baillieu owns properties in Hawthorn and Richmond and is a part owner of properties in Red Hill and Sorrento.

He refused to comment on Labor's class war campaign. But National Party leader Peter Ryan issued a statement in his defence. "Ted Baillieu is a man of great integrity and decency. He cares about Victorians and wants to improves their lives," Mr Ryan said.

"John Brumby lives in the past with endless excuses, bitter 1950s class war division, corruption, incompetence and muckraking all around him.

"With his new class war campaign, John Brumby is trying to divide and destroy the harmonious social fabric of our community."

BAILLIEUS SHRINKING SHAREHOLDINGS

DECLARED SHAREHOLDINGS 2009

Aconex

Alumina

Allianz Little

Dragons Fund

ANZ

ASX

Bank of

Queesnland

BHP Billiton

Bluescope Steel

Camberwell

- Surrey Hill

Community

Finance Ltd

Bendigo Bank

CBA

Computershare

CSL

CSR

DBF Holdings

DUI

Envestra

Fosters Brewing

Group

Hawthorn Glen

IOOF

NAB

Newcrest Mining

Newscorp

Onesteel

Osmiridium

Perpetual Trustees

RIO Tinto

Telstra

Transfield Services

Wesfarmers

Westfield

Westpac

DELETED FROM

REGISTER 2007

DCA Group

Denehurst

Stadium Aust Trust

Rimfire Films

ADDED TO

REGISTER 2007

Australian Wealth

Management

AMP

Computershare

Coates Hire

Oxiana

Envestra

Paperlinx

Plantinum Asset

Management

Transfield Services

DELETED FROM

REGISTER 2008

AMP

AXA

Challenger Financial

Coates Hire

Coles Myer

Futuris Corporation

Paperlinx

Mayne Pharma

Rinker

Plantinum Asset

Management

St George Bank

Symbion Health

Telstra

The Australian Gas Light Co

Woolworths

ADDED TO

REGISTER 2008

Oz Minerals

DELETED FROM

REGISTER 2009

Aust Wealth Management

Envestra

Global Mining Investments

Magmen Holdings

Mutual Trust Pty

Oxiana

Oz Minerals

ADDED TO

REGISTER 2009

Allianz Little Dragons Fund

Bank of Queesnland

CSL

IOOF

Telstra