Stephen Mayne was
wrong to say ASIC is doing nothing about Multiplex. ASIC has pulled in
a lot of current and former staff and the bottom line is that charges
are expected to be laid in November. The focus is the prospectus. My
source was pulled in to an ASIC hearing. Some insiders are talking
about getting indemnities in return for testimony.

Stephen Mayne writes:

That
is very interesting. Could John Roberts be the first Australian
billionaire to be tackled by the law for “talking up” the Multiplex
share price by not telling the truth about Wembley? He’s certainly the
most Labor-friendly billionaire we’ve produced. Graham Richardson once
described the colourful Roberts as “my only mate with a quid,” although
that was before he started working for Kerry Packer.

Roberts
also runs Australia’s most union-friendly construction company. One of
his Perth-based directors owns a pub with Kevin “Fatty” Reynolds, the
notoriously militant West Australian boss of the CFMEU.

The key
in this investigation is producing documents which prove Multiplex
directors knew or should have known that Wembley was blowing out at the
time it was raising hundreds of millions of dollars from investors
earlier this year. This is the relevent dynamite from the Four Cornerstranscript:

But an internal Multiplex budget on Wembley from late January is now in the hands of Four Corners.
The cover memo says the budget, sent by the Wembley project director,
is for discussion with JCR, the initials of John Roberts. It’s a
complex document but essentially, it contains two very different sets
of numbers on Wembley.

First, there’s the JCR costs. Next to
that is the likely site view. That’s typically how site managers see
the real costs of a project. Both versions predict heavy operational
losses. Multiplex plans to offset these losses by winning claims from
subcontractors. The best-case scenario, the JCR view, is a £13 million
profit. But the site view is much worse. Without successful claims,
it’s a loss of nearly £87 million. And even with claims, it’s a loss of
nearly £48 million. Remember, just 14 days before, the prospectus had
left the public thinking that Wembley was on-track. So if the site
view’s correct, it beggars belief that a £48 million loss could have
been suddenly discovered in just two weeks.

Four Corners can’t
say that a discussion with John Roberts took place or who else saw the
document, but no losses were announced to the market. In February,
Multiplex’s banker, UBS, valued the shares at a heady $6.60.

And there was this later:

TICKY FULLERTON: Sorry, one last question. The accounting
group general manager was retrenched. Can you tell us why? He was
retrenched in March. Can you tell us why?

ANDREW ROBERTS: Um, I
understand that he was redundant but by mutual agreement. I mean,
there’s…that…If the suggestion is that there was…he was
retrenched because he’s raised issues, then, absolutely, that’s not the
case.

CRIKEY: This man is the key to ASIC securing a prosecution against the Roberts.