Richard White, Clive Palmer make it personal
On Wednesday came the extraordinary findings of the WiseTech board's investigation INTO Richard White's misconduct, and the complete lack of consequences.
So much of what's hilarious about Australian business sits right in that exquisite limbo between what leaders say and what is really happening. That is the golden valley of delusion above which I wait, in the bushes, sprawled out in my khakis with my sniper rifle.
Last week, climate warrior Mike Cannon-Brookes won gold, silver and bronze for his tortuous justification for buying a private jet. So pitiful was his logic that I could scarcely be bothered deconstructing it.
This week was more of a team effort. As ever, WiseTech was a high achiever. Four weeks ago, its four independent directors resigned en bloc after WiseTech's billionaire founder Richard White (AKA Rick Le Blanc, AKA Riccardo Bianco) threatened to sue them for defamation if they released an independent report into his misconduct as chief executive. What's left of the WiseTech board on Wednesday released a summary of the report's findings, which included that White had misled the board about his sexual relationships with an employee and a supplier.
In the later case, White had WiseTech enter into a contract with a woman he was sleeping with and to this day, nobody else at WiseTech has any visibility over what (if anything) she actually produced for WiseTech. The eye-popping question the remaining directors have simply danced around is whether White used more than a million dollars of public company money for the purpose of his sexual gratification. I am not asserting that he did so, but the report certainly leaves it hanging as a conclusion available to be drawn. Why?
Absurdly, the full population of WiseTech's board is now White as chairman, one of White's former lovers who he currently owes $700 million and two men who White made billionaires. Both billionaires, Charles Gibbon and Michael Gregg, are classified by WiseTech as independent directors! And in its independence, the board has taken no action against White other than to express its theatrical displeasure and amend some company policies that undoubtedly White will harbour negligible fear about flouting in the future.