'shaggers' turn up heat on planet platinum

'Shaggers' turn up heat on Planet Platinum

Date March 8, 2013 - 2:14PM 15 reading now

Ben Butler

It wasn’t just the lack of airconditioning raising a sweat in a windowless backroom of Melbourne strip club Showgirls Bar 20 this morning.

As they filed into a dim, red-walled room decorated with shaded chandeliers, wood panelling and pictures of scantily clad ladies, shareholders in the King Street club’s owner, Planet Platinum, were confronted with the news that the company had been suspended from the stock exchange – again.

Minority shareholders, who have formed a shareholder action group called the ‘‘Shaggers’’, used the annual meeting to deliver some of their own bad news to the company’s controlling shareholder, John Trimble.

They overwhelmingly voted down the remuneration report, earning Planet Platinum a second strike and forcing a spill of the board at a meeting within 90 days.

Advertisement

Mr Trimble will be allowed to vote his 80 per cent of the company at that meeting, so the spill will almost certainly fail.

And there is not much of a board to spill. The reason Planet Platinum was suspended from the stock exchange this morning is that ASX rules require three directors and one, Nick Pitliangas, resigned from the board yesterday, leaving the company with only Mr Trimble and former St Kilda mayor John Callanan.

The company, which is also the landlord of the Daily Planet brothel in Elsternwick, only resumed ASX trade last month, when it filed an overdue financial report after being suspended for four months.

Those finances also gave little cheer to shareholders and management.

Profit dived 74 per cent in the six months to the end of December, to just $63,000, and auditor Melanie Leydin raised doubts the business is a going concern.

But Mr Trimble, who is the nephew of the late mafia figure Robert “Aussie Bob” Trimbole and Planet Platinum’s chairman and chief executive, refused to wilt at this morning’s meeting despite the heat, the angry shareholders and the bad financial news.

He said the company had ‘‘another horrid year’’ thanks to a long-running stoush with Victoria Police. The club’s liquor license was revoked in May 2011, but the decision was overturned by the Victorian Supreme Court two months later.

‘‘We’ve taken a hell of a slam... but we’re back on track,’’ he told shareholders.

‘‘The past three years have been chaotic nonsense – not from a business perspective, from outside avenues.’’

He made veiled reference to a theory popular among King Street denizens that the Victorian Government would like them evicted in favour of the development of a shopping centre at the base of the Grollo family’s Rialto tower, which sits behind the strip club strip.

‘‘It would appear there’s been a fair bit of political pressure to acquire this building for other purposes,’’ he said.

‘‘That’s all finished.’’

While he was forthright in his views about Victoria Police and liquor licensing, Mr Trimble seemed a little vague about some of Planet Platinum’s financial details – especially those relating to transactions between the company and his private business interests.

As he answered shareholders’ questions, he snapped and unsnapped a pair of reading glasses, the lenses of which open out like barn doors.

A consistent theme of Shagger questioning was a $2.6 million loan, owed by Mr Trimble’s private company Metropolis City Promotions and secured against his personal assets.

Did the board give permission to refinance the loan when Mr Trimble’s company Clover Dale, dipped into insolvency in 2011?

‘‘I dunno,’’ Mr Trimble said. ‘‘Did we? Nope.’’

Shareholders put pressure on Mr Callanan to call in the loan, which was first made in 2003 so that Mr Trimble could pay out the mortgage over the Daily Planet and has been repeatedly extended until it now falls due in 2014.

‘‘We never got the loan, it was a load of bullshit,’’ Mr Trimble said.

‘‘The only way we’re going to get it paid back is to pay a dividend.’’

What are the prospects of a dividend?

‘‘There’s no prospect of a dividend.’’

In a small victory for the Shaggers, Mr Callanan agreed to raise the issue of moving forward review of the loan at the next company board meeting.

What happened to a request shareholders made in October to convene an extraordinary meeting?

‘‘I did not see that letter,’’ Mr Trimble said.

Why did rent, rates and occupancy costs soar by 500 per cent in the December half?

‘‘I dunno. Carbon tax, ha ha ha.’’

Why did Mr Pitliangis resign?

‘‘I don’t know what Nick’s personal problems were, it’s personal.’’

What’s this ‘‘growing concern’’ note in the latest results mean?

That one was handpassed to Ms Leyden.

‘‘We don’t have 100 per cent certainty... that they can pay their debt in 12 months time,’’ she said.

Shareholders unaffiliated with Mr Trimble seemed unimpressed. The motion to hold a spill meeting passed with 88 per cent in favour.


Read more: http://www.theage.com.au/business/shaggers-turn-up-heat-on-planet-platinum-20130308-2fq4z.html#ixzz2MuqyIO7m