Rear Window
Carlton brawler Bruce Mathieson turns on Endeavour
Myriam RobinColumnistAt first glance, the similarities between the Carlton Football Club and ASX-listed Endeavour Group are few. But both organisations have this year grappled with self-inflicted instability, thanks to a mutual benefactor in billionaire pubs baron Bruce Mathieson.
The Blues have just enjoyed their best season this century, but only after surviving a mid-season rant from Mathieson, a long-time club powerbroker whose first Carlton coup (against then-president and Liberal Party operator John Elliott) was launched over two decades ago.
Pubs baron Bruce Mathieson said it was “nice to be proven wrong” on Carlton. Tracey Nearmy
In May, Mathieson lashed the now-Luke Sayers-led board as “weak” and “pathetic”, criticised the club’s administration, CEO and football department, and foreshadowed the imminent demise of coach Michael Voss. “I just don’t think there is a future under this management,” he said.
His criticism of the board came despite the fact his nephew Craig had been sitting on it for the past decade, filling the Mathieson family spot offered in response to the hundreds of pokies the family had gifted the club in 2010.
After his uncle’s spray, and his own spat with Sayers in the Blues change room at the SCG, Craig Mathieson resigned from the board in May. Soon afterwards, the Blues embarked on a winning streak for the ages, falling one game short of the Grand Final.
By late August, Mathieson was saying it was “nice to be proven wrong”. But any improvement the Blues’ performance had on his mood must have been swamped by the other slow-moving disasters demanding his attention.
Over the same timeframe, he’s been bleeding money through his listed investments in casino operator Star Entertainment Group, and clubs and pubs play Endeavour Group.
Mathieson’s 10 per cent stake in Star was acquired this year for $141 million at an average $1.49 a share. On Tuesday, Star’s share price stood at 61¢, not helped along by a capital raise Mathieson decided to sit out. On paper, he’s smoked $83 million in six months.
Legacy-focused
As for Endeavour Group, where Mathieson owns 15 per cent, it was upon its 2021 demerger from Woolworths trading at above $6 and went as high as $8.32 last year. Now, it’s sitting at $5.24, weighed down by its voluntarily early implementation of new pokies restrictions introduced in Victoria, and the growing threat of further legislation in other states. On paper, Mathieson is reportedly down $300 million in just four months.
Once again, it’s not like Mathieson is a total cleanskin here. He sat on the Endeavour board until June last year and was thereafter replaced by his son (and former Endeavour hotels head) Bruce Jnr.
Still, facing another implosion – and four months off his 80th birthday – the legacy-focused elder Mathieson has dusted off the script from his Carlton onslaught, attacking the Endeavour board his son is a part of as an “insiders’ club” responsible for “material value destruction”.
To fix things, he’s thrown his support behind a bid to elect ex-Woolworths executive Bill Wavish at the October 31 AGM. Wavish is, incidentally, a mate from Mathieson’s old racehorse syndicate, who also floated public market duds Myer and Dick Smith.
After first trying to frustrate Wavish’s board bid with the unique requirement he had to first be signed off by regulators (no others had to wait for their approvals), Endeavour’s chairman Peter Hearl has since folded and will allow Wavish to run. And with Jnr also up for election, Endeavour’s other shareholders will be hoping it’s not a Carlton situation, where the institution’s luck improved just as soon as Mathieson’s representative bowed out.
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