Men Who Killed Qantas - Matthew Benns [68]
Meanwhile, the chairman, Jackson, was cheesed off that journalists should see fit to question the role of James Packer in the deal. Packer held a seat on the Qantas board and was also the biggest single shareholder in Macquarie Bank. Did that mean he had absented himself from takeover discussions at the Qantas board table because of his interest? ‘I think that’s absolutely an absurd suggestion … of course I did not ask James to remove himself from the decision-making process,’ Jackson expostulated. ‘I don’t believe that James had any conflict of interest, and I find it offensive that you might even suggest that.’4
After all, Jackson should know what a decent chap he was – she held a position on an advisory board of Packer’s Consolidated Press Holdings and was invited to his wedding to Erica Baxter in the South of France. But if Jackson and Packer were close, which they were, Dixon also got on well enough with him to take a seat on the board of Packer’s Publishing and Broadcasting Limited. All friends together. It was just unfortunate that the big hug at the end of the press conference had shown the world how friendly the chairman and the CEO were, and raised the question of exactly who was guarding the interests of the shareholders and who was looking after the staff.
The deal had been put together by the brightest brains from the big end of town. Ten years after Project Suzie, Nicholas Moore was once again heading the charge for Macquarie Bank. The original partners from Project Suzie, David Bonderman’s Texas Pacific Group, were joined by David Coe’s Allco Group, who had assured Qantas shareholders they were not the barbarians at the gate, and the Canadian Onex Group. Macquarie was taking less than 15 per cent of the final equity in the company but was in line to make hundreds of millions of dollars in fees when the deal went through. They were not alone. The Qantas executives stood to make $91 million once the deal was signed. Dixon would walk out of his office on the last day of the old Qantas with an $8 million cash payout and walk back into the same office the next day as part of the new Qantas to be greeted with a golden hello. And what a welcome. For sitting back in his old chair he would get a performance fee of up to $60 million.
Thirty-six Qantas managers were looking at cash bonuses of up to 200 per cent of their salaries and a stake in the new company of up to 4.5 per cent. Dixon would be paid the 30,000 performance-related shares he had been given by the board in October at the new price, even though he had not had time to make the targets. A tidy $1.7 million towards his $8 million. Not that he really needed the money. According to the Qantas annual report for the year before the bid, Dixon took home $5.3 million. In fact, Dixon did not want the money. He announced that he would be giving his share to charity – medical research and Indigenous health and education. It was a decision that astonished his old mate, advertising guru John Singleton: ‘I said to him, “Mate, you will become a charity.” Jesus Christ.’5
Dixon, the man who made bumper profits partly through tough wage restraints on Qantas workers, said: ‘I wouldn’t say I am embarrassed by money, but I think I’ve got enough. Look, I’m not going to say I don’t like having money and being comfortable. But how much do I need? And that was a lot of money and I would have had the greatest thrill in the world being able to give it away. I didn’t want the money. I really didn’t.’6 But even though he was giving his share away, he conceded that the huge amount of money on offer ‘without doubt’ clouded the Qantas executives’ judgement: ‘If I had my time again, I’d say [to the bidding consortium], “Yeah, this is such a good offer it should be considered, but you’d have to make that offer under no circumstances with the management being offered part of it.” I think people saw us compromised.’7
Another executive