CBD

Insolvency duo raking it in

It may have earned them a judicial flogging, but at least the job insolvency practitioners FTI Consulting's John Park and Ginette Muller have been doing looking after the corpse of Peter Drake's LM Investment Management will keep the wolves from their doors.

Documents filed with the corporate regulator show that Park and Muller between March 19 and July 31 billed more than $3.2 million for their work as administrators of the colourful Mr Drake's funds management empire.

That's $24,000 a day for a pair who a Queensland Supreme Court judge, Jean Dalton, last week found "preferred their own commercial interests to the interests of the fund" and swore to matters that were "not consonant with reality".

On Monday, CBD called for Muller to resign from the administration and reconsider her future in the insolvency trade. No such luck so far, although Park this week stood aside from the board of the corporate gravediggers' union, the Insolvency Practitioners Association of Australia, after it opened an investigation into his conduct.

There's to be no action against Muller, who Justice Dalton described as "sniping and argumentative", as she's not a member.

Glory days

Ian Narev had an interesting take on whether chief executives should get all the glory for bumper financial results when the Commonwealth Bank posted a mammoth $7.8 billion profit on Wednesday.

Asked how he felt to be handing down the biggest ever profit by an Australian bank, bossman Narev deflected credit to his staff.

"The No. 1 feeling I've got is I'm not the man who delivered it. We've got 50,000 people and 14 million customers who delivered it," he said.

It will be interesting to see whether the bank's remuneration committee takes a similar perspective. Last year Narev received $5.67 million in pay, while the highest-paid big four banker, ANZ's Mike Smith, got $10.1 million.

Program on high

Watch out mums - Qantas head pilot Alan Joyce wants to recruit your tiny tots. Qantas' Frequent Flyer program is at saturation point, its lounges choked with the more than 9 million people signed up to the program.

"That's one in every other Australian household," Joyce told an American Chamber of Commerce in Australia lunch at Melbourne's Grand Hyatt. "And unbelievably it's still growing at 2000 new members, which are joining the program every day."

Qantas is upgrading its lounges to cope with the demand, with revamps in Singapore and Los Angeles.

"Even blind Freddy can see our lounges are packed," Joyce said. "It's a big sign of the success that we have."

But he has a cunning plan. "Soon we'll have to start turning up at maternity wards to hand out cards to newborn babies if the figures keep growing that way."

Tigers win a fan

Yet another overseas-born chief executive has bowed to the iron logic of life in Melbourne by choosing an AFL team.

Following in the footsteps of BHP boss Andrew Mackenzie, who last week plumped for cellar-dwellers St Kilda, US-born CSL CEO Paul Perreault has revealed his support for Richmond, which is set to make the finals for the first time in 12 years.

Unveiling his first full-year profit result on Wednesday, Perreault said he had thought long and hard about his choice, analysing the prospects of the team and its finances (which he declared sound).

Given that he runs a pharma group, it might have been thought Essendon would have been a more appropriate choice. However, Perreault also confessed the Tigers share the same colours - yellow and black - as his old school, the University of Central Florida.

Got a tip?

bbutler@fairfaxmedia.com.au