Tears and sympathy for the deprived

The shareholders of Invalid, whose portfolios have been obliterated, were reminded yesterday that they are not the only ones doing it tough.

When grilled over a $1.88 million retention bonus that Invalid's chief executive, Peter Hurley, will get if he can hang on until June 30 next year, the group's chairman, Trevor Gerber, put on a sob story.

"The man has a family, he has commitments ...," Gerber said, likening Hurley to something of an Aussie battler.

"He has a significant personal investment in the company which, like everybody else, has been substantially reduced," said Gerber, who also sits on the MAp board.

Noting that Hurley had already selflessly sacrificed $700,000 in short-term bonuses the year Valad started to implode, along with two years of long-term bonuses, Gerber noted that Hurley had also seen most of the $4 million invested in a 2007 capital raising turn to dust.

Ahem, along with most other shareholders in the group, which has racked up more than $1.5 billion in losses.

"I, for one, am not going to ask him to give it [the retention payment] up," said Gerber, in response to some curly questions from a former Valad chairman cum disgruntled shareholder, Barry Wynne.

"This to me is quite obscene," said Wynne of Hurley's retention payment being double his annual base pay.

Maybe Wynne was not only perturbed by the 94 per cent slump in Invalid's security price, but by the pay rises enjoyed by the company's executives and directors since his departure in 2006.

Hurley's base pay (despite his recent wage cut) in the past five years has still gone from $274,702 to $843,000. Gerber was paid $363,000 for the year, or about double what Wynne was paid in his last full year as chairman.

BLEEDING HEROES

Hurley, meanwhile, seemed to thank himself collectively for the cuts he took to his pay. "This reduction has been done despite contractual rights to maintain their level of salary, and the board and I would like to acknowledge them and thank them for their commitment to the business," he said of Valad staff who had taken pay cuts.

Apart from the $1.88 million payment, Hurley will be entitled to a $2.3 million termination payment if he leaves Invalid before mid-2011. Meanwhile, an outgoing director, Kevin McCabe, was a no-show after pocketing the final #29.5 million ($51 million) instalment from Valad's $2 billion purchase of his Scarborough property business in Britain in 2007.

A recent placement by Invalid and a one-for-four entitlement issue funded the final payment to McCabe. Valad's market capitalisation is now one-seventh of what it paid for McCabe's business at the peak of the cycle.

DELAYED IN DUBAI

Emirates Airline's chairman, Ahmed bin Saeed Al-Maktoum, has apologised for cancelling his trip to Sydney this week "due to unforeseen circumstances".

He did not specify the reasons for the delay. But Ahmed is the chairman of the Dubai Government's Supreme Fiscal Committee.

The cancellation came after his airline lodged a submission in relation to the proposed extension of the ACCC-endorsed Joint Services Agreement between Qantas and British Airways on the Kangaroo Route. For the first time it appears that one unfair advantage Emirates used to have has suddenly become a handicap. "Emirates is 100 per cent owned by the government of Dubai through its commercial investment arm, Investment Corporation of Dubai," the submission said.

BLESS BANKERS

The debt-stricken National Leisure & Gaming Limited has shown that the financial crisis has not been all bad.

For one it has demonstrated, according to the pub owner, that banks are filled with great people. At the group's annual meeting yesterday NLG's managing director, Andrew Jolliffe, paid tribute to his bankers at the National Australia Bank and its subsidiary, the Bank of New Zealand.

"I would also like to highlight my sincere appreciation to the BNZA/NAB for the indefatigable, significant and imperative support of NLG in its endeavour to return value to all NLG's stakeholders," Jolliffe said. It is not the first time a debt-laden company has publicly grovelled to its bankers this season of annual meetings. During Babcock & Brown Power's meeting its chief executive, Ross Rolfe, praised his 11 banks. "I couldn't hope for a better group of people to work through a difficult set of issues with."

IN A TIGHT SPOT

The anointed chief executive of the loss-making "renewable energy" retailer Jackgreen Energy, John Huggart, was given a warm welcome yesterday. "The board is delighted that John has agreed to bring his energy retailing experience and expertise to Jackgreen," said Jackgreen's chairman and former AGL boss, Greg Martin. The appointment came the same day Jackgreen went into a trading halt, warning it was in a "tight short-term cashflow position". Jackgreen said it was mulling a capital raising and tapping some extra lines of credit. "As you can gather, it has been a busy beginning to the new financial year," Martin told shareholders at the group's annual meeting yesterday.

COOL UNDER FIRE

David Clarke's replacement as chairman of the bombed-out property group Goodman Group, Ian Ferrier, did not seem too flustered by the barrage of abuse directed his way at the group's annual meeting yesterday.

Maybe his experience as a corporate undertaker in helping officiate creditor meetings helps.

There was the first question about the planned move for the Goodman family to reassume a stake in the company by selling some of their land to the group in return for shares, which included the expressions shonky, dodgy and not kosher.

Ferrier, without breaking a sweat, responded: "If you suggest anywhere there has been shonky or dubious deals, that's a silly thing to say."

So good was Ferrier that one investor described the chairman's speech as a "masterful 20 minutes of spin ... there is a place for you in Canberra."

In his speech Ferrier outlined the company's hard-nosed approach to its potential acquisition of the Goodman family's stake in Moorabbin Airport.

"For any acquisition that we consider, there are rigorous investment criteria that the asset has to meet to ensure it can be aligned with the group's strategy."

Got a tip? Use our online tips box or email srochfort@smh.com.au