New broom at Sky City set to sweep

A new boss at Sky City Entertainment Group Ltd [SKC.NZ] brings a whole new broom to the company closet, a CEO with a long history of casino experience.


Nigel Morrison

Nigel Morrison has more than 18 years' experience in the casino business throughout Australia and in Asia and his tenure at the New Zealand entertainment company is a welcome relief from the current temporary head, Elmar Toime, with no gaming experience, and the previous one, Evan Davies, who got his casino experience on the job when he started with the company right at the beginning.

Morrison's pedigree, having just left the Macau-based Galaxy Entertainment Group, former chief executive of the Federal Group, Australia's largest private casino and gaming company and as chief operating officer at Crown Limited where Morrison played a big role in restructuring the business.

It is that experience, "restructuring" the likes of Crowns' massive riverside Melbourne gambling mecca, that will come in handy with his new role as the head of Sky City.

Sky City's business units all need a good sorting out, they are over-laden with middle management and there is plenty of fat to trim and Morrison's appointment looks to be one of managements best decisions in some time. Morrison's reputation for sorting out Crown can be seen as an indication of the direction that Sky City will be going over the short to medium term.


Part of Sky City Darwin Casino, one of the better performing
casinos in the gaming group.

Adelaide Casino needs a close look and will be kept and "refocused", as does the Auckland flagship casino, Sky Citys' chief money spinner. Previously the company talked of selling the Adelaide Casino.

Sky City Cinemas are definitely for the chop and management have been remiss of late in informing shareholders as to a date when the cinemas will be sold, or if there is indeed a buyer.

The whole takeover process over the last 4 months has been complicated and disclosure to shareholders has been confusing, changeable and misleading at times.

It looks like the the promise of a takeover has come to an end and it is time to get down to the real business and Morrison must achieve the objective of rebuilding the company to its former glory.

Morrison's $NZ3.7 million remuneration package, with around a third made up of "bonus" shares and lets hope it is results based, is generous, and he should be given 12 months to see things materially start to change, if he makes the right decisions to begin with, and then we should judge his leadership.

For Sky City shareholders lets hope he does the business.

He takes up the reigns in March 2008.


Disclosure: I own SKC shares in the Share Investor Portfolio


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Electoral Finance Act: The Vote

The Electoral Finance Bill was passed into law today with a 63 to 57 vote majority.

Peter Dunne and his party, United Future, withdrew their support for the bill at the last minute and two votes were lost. Dunne said he still believed in the bill but public support indicated he should drop his stance of support for the Act.

He is probably to be despised even more than the other 63 supporters of this Act because he supports suppression of free speech but hasn't got the balls to follow his convictions because he is trying to save his hide for 2008.

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Historical day as New Zealand loses democratic freedom

The Electoral Finance Bill was passed at approximately 5.15pm Tuesday 18, 2007.

Never before in my 42 years of existence have I ever seen such an anti democratic and unbridled attempt to hold on to the reigns of power, aside states such as Mugabe's Zimbabwe, Putin's Russia, Stalin’s Russia, Mao's China, Mbeke's South Africa and Hitler’s Germany.

We have seen the death of free speech today, unless you are the Labour Government and you can purchase it with taxpayer’s money by trumpeting your “achievements” through state agencies.

In a democratic society you have to be allowed to speak your mind without fear and that means the freedom to critique or advocate for a government or opposition. The Electoral Finance Act means you can’t do that.

In fact in a free democracy it means that even if you disagree with what I or someone lease says you have to defend my right to have that view even if it pisses you off.

That essential part of our democracy is now missing and we now must vote to remove those freedom haters who removed our rights today to have our say.

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Leaders must come clean over losses to restore trust in credit markets

The current market turmoil seems more a reaction to uncertainty over the scope of the sub prime losses and the attendant credit crunch rather certainty over how bad it really is.

Those with the knowledge over just how much the losses are not telling the general investing public and may I be so bold to suggest that they are not telling our political masters either and if they have then our politicians are not telling all lest they panic the sheep and cause some sort of financial stampede.

To be fair the losses would have to be in the trillions to have material serious effects on financial markets and economies but the uncertainty over losses seems to have done more damage than the realities over an accurate amount.

The uncertainty has dented the all important credit sector of the economy. A sector that relies on trust, full disclosure and the knowledge that with all things known to the lender he can fork over the credit knowing he is more than likely to get his money back.

It is the essence of how business and economies run.

This trust simply doesn’t freely exist anymore and will take a complete clean out of the sub prime losses and then time to restore the much needed trust that this all important part of the business world needs.

Until then, business growth will slow, economies likewise and the mere fact that the trust isn’t there will apply the hand brakes to just about everything that needs credit applied to it. That is most of the worlds’ economy and that is why this “credit crunch” has been talked about so much.

Just a rider to the above though. If losses are in the multi trillions then the psychological trust issue that I have discussed over lending to others will be matched by hard facts that some real money has actually been lost.

The impact of that will be hard to measure but clearly it will be serious.

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