Herd on the Terrace: Hard lessons for Victory Metals, Alannah MacTiernan after landing stint in ASX sin bin

A rare earths hopeful spruiked by former WA Labor frontbencher Alannah MacTiernan has shot itself in the foot and splattered metatarsal fragments across its Cue paddock. Victory Metals now has rehabilitation work to do after a week-long stock exchange suspension, triggered by some over-enthusiastic promotion of a scoping study for its North Stanmore project. Victory caught the ire of the ASX compliance team after a yarn about the study appeared in The West Australian newspaper last Tuesday — a day before the 57-page document made its way on to the market operator’s platform. In her role as Victory’s head of strategic relations, MacTiernan had called a HOTT operative last Monday afternoon successfully pitching a purportedly exclusive story about the study. Victory’s head honcho Brendan Clark then emailed a media release with some study highlights, which our highly trained operative promptly re-hashed for the Tuesday paper. But Clark emailed us again hours later trying to have the story pulled, waffling about a need to do a bit of “tidying up” of “some listing rule differences” that apparently had “nothing to do” with the study result. With the printing presses already running, his nonsense plea fell on deaf ears. Victory’s mea culpa to the ASX officials this week revealed a widespread publicity campaign involving Clark, MacTiernan and Victory’s investor relations adviser Ben Creagh. The media release had been sent well in advance to five other journalists, all identified by name and publication in Victory’s ASX confession. Company secretary Robbie Featherby assured ASX officials that Victory would conduct an internal review of its dealings with media lowlife. At a minimum, Featherby said Victory would provide continuous disclosure training to all board members, executives and senior employees. Here’s hoping MacTiernan learns that while junior rock stocks are the heart of the Wild West, there are some serious ground rules — including don’t humbug cynical mining hacks. And — handy tip — it’s much lower risk to pick a single target when shopping an exclusive drop. Svensson shows Joyce spirit lives on at Qantas Depending on your view of Australia’s airline duopoly and Federal politicians, Qantas domestic boss Markus Svensson’s performance at the Senate regional transport inquiry this week was either a ripper or a shocker. In the spirit of the hard-nosed former Qantas boss Alan Joyce, new Qantas chief executive Vanessa Hudson did not even bother flying someone to Canberra to dodge loaded questions from Victorian National Bridget McKenzie. By videolink from Sydney, Svensson read out an opening statement riddled with corporate Doublespeak as he argued against McKenzie’s proposed compensation scheme for victims of late and cancelled flights.. Suspecting Svennson’s was just rehashing Qantas’ late Senate submission, McKenzie eventually intervened and drew this huffy response from the assertive Swede: “I thought I was allowed to finish.” Committee chair Glenn Sterle then took charge, agreeing Svensson had been interrupted but then politely reminding the Qantas Lounge keyholder to be brief. Svennson assured the WA Labor apparatchik: “I’ve got one sentence.” After about 33 seconds and four distinct pieces of waffle, Sterle was overheard saying “this a long sentence”. McKenzie said it was “a very long sentence”. Svensson finally relented after 46 seconds (and what we punctuated into seven sentences), clearing the way for a dressing down from McKenzie. “I thought things were going to be different under the new leadership,” she said. Yeah, pigs and kangaroos might fly too. Biggins battle looms for Davey Just a quick follow-up to our yarn last week about various rumblings in Grant Davey’s St Georges Terrace stable, including the impending departure of Davey and his boardroom buddy Dixie Marshall from Lotus Resources. Well-heeled investor Stephen Biggins has called for a shareholder meeting to vote on removing Davey from the board of South Australian geothermal play Earths Energy. Word is that Biggins is unhappy about Earths Energy’s chief executive Josh Puckridge having resigned after just eight months and Chairman Grant’s promise to “manage the affairs of the company”. We keenly await details of Biggins’ meeting requisition and the inevitable bunfight.