CBD Melbourne: Here’s to a very speedy recovery

The idea is yet to be put to government officials. Presumably it’s a nice option to have.

RISKY BUSINESS

Not even the coronavirus pandemic, it seems, is enough to stop some of the country’s best-known stock floggers spruiking investment opportunities to anyone who will listen.

Even this week – a day after Prime Minister Scott Morrison had ordered all pubs, cinemas, restaurants and even churches to be shuttered to stop the spread of the virus – punters were gathered at Sydney’s Radisson Blu to hear about stem-cell small-cap Cynata Therapeutics, mineral exploration outfit Lithium Consolidated and security provider XTEK Limited.

And there in person to present to retail shareholders and brokers? Shaw & Partners’ chief investment officer Martin Crabb. Lunch provided for no cost.

This column was told Crabb presented to a conference room at the hotel which was filled with just a dozen people. And all, we’re told, were spaced apart to help prevent the spread of the coronavirus. Still, it puts a new spin on risky investing.

DIGITAL NATIVE

It’s action stations inside the Andrews government as state ministers and a broader response team grapple with the spread of COVID-19.

And it’s great to see Andrews and his team heeding their own advice to distance themselves from one another, even during serious meetings. On Monday, the Victorian cabinet met inside the Melbourne Room at One Treasury Place government offices, instead of it’s usual haunt in the appropriately dubbed the Cabinet Room.

The Melbourne Room is bigger and enabled all 22 cabinet members to be spaced almost 1.5 metres away from each other. Apparently the meeting was a success. But after new restrictions on social movement, Andrews decided on Wednesday to hold cabinet via videolink.

It’s a good move, notwithstanding any worries of technical hitches.

FRIEND-ISH

Meanwhile, there have been further developments inside the Spray Tan Capital offices of self-described “prominent expert” Michael Kodari. His outfit Kodari Securities, as readers of this column may remember, has dealt with a number of misfortunes in the past year.

Several months ago Kodari Securities was forced to deal with “formatting issues”, “mis-interpretations” and “mis-communication of words” with market reports released to clients which suggested Macquarie chief executive Shemara Wikramanayake promised “to invest $4 trillion in renewables”. That was news to the MacBank boss.

Now some of the country’s most prominent luxury brands have been left confused about the appearance of their names on a list of Kodari Securities’ “brand partners and advertisers”.

Or, as Bentley put it, “There is no direct business and support to this organisation from Bentley Motors Ltd, other than local interaction between a retailer and the customer.”

It was similar bemusement at Crown Resorts, who we are told forwarded our query for their legal team to sort out. Rockpool Bar & Grill, another on the “brand partners and advertisers” list is also not a brand partner or an advertiser. Jewellers Fairfax & Roberts were also left confused.

We asked Kodari, who was happy to provide an explanation. “With these brands they have all either paid Kodari Magazine to advertise or we have entered a mutually beneficial partnership that helps our company,” he told this column. “I am not sure who you have been speaking with however a great example below is Fairfax & Roberts that the magazine associate team and I have met with a few times, who claim they haven’t heard of us.” Appended to the email was an invite to a press event in June 2018.