With the Financial Review still struggling to find a replacement for yours truly on the Rear Window gossip column, we have decided to start our own business column called FRONTWINDOW.

PRIVATE PACKER VERSUS PUBLIC PACKER

Does Kerry Packer keep all the best deals for himself and leave PBL, in which he owns about 35 per cent, to pick up the crumbs? You be the judge. Crikey pursued this theme at last year’s PBL AGM (see shareowner section) but has never noticed anyone else in the media raising it. For instance, the papers reported this week that private Kerry picked up 10 per cent of Indian telecoms manufacturer Himachal Futuristic Communications (HFCL) for almost $400 million. Given that PBL is now the preferred vehicle for One.tel – that’s after James and Kerry got in earlier at 1c and 30c respectively – why didn’t PBL do this deal. Or, more importantly, why didn’t ecorp do the accompanying joint ventures with HCFL to develop software and e-commerce. The Indians are producing the world’s brightest IT graduates at the moment such that Silicon Valley is flying them in by the plane load. Kerry is obviously being very smart in using his financial clout to muscle in on the ground. But why didn’t shareholders in his listed companies get to share in this apparent bonanza and why doesn’t anyone in the business press ask this question. Maybe this would be a good one for the courageous Michael Pascoe to pursue on Business Sunday.

KROGER SET UP FOR LIFE

Bookmaker’s son Michael Kroger is now free to turn his hand to politics after watching his $16.70 investment in Emitch turn into about $70 million after the 50c shares finished their first day at $3.02 on Friday. Michael can’t sell for two years which means he’ll probably have to wait until the election after this one to make his move. And with his Moldflow investment also worth tens of millions, Michael won’t need to take on any more gigs that leave him open to accusations that he’s nothing more than a door-opener into Peter Costello’s office. So the NAB should not bother to take Michael on as a lobbyist to clear the way for a tilt at AMP – both of which are in plenty of trouble at the moment.

BONDY’S RELEASE CLOSES THE BOOK ON THE 80s

How ironic that Bondy gets out of jail just as the Naughties fire up. All the files on the 80s crooks are closed now. Former Coles Myer CEO Brian Quinn is back relaxing on the Gold Coast. Abe Goldberg is still in Poland, Christopher Skase is still in Majorca, George Herscu’s been out for more than five years and the entire Elders IXL debacle saw only Ken Jarrett do six months. Now that we’ve spent the 90s sorting out the 80s we can all get back on the greed is good gravy train with these crazy net stocks. Poor old Bondy still reckons he was hard done by. Yes it was crazy paying $1 billion for Kerry Packer’s three eastern seaboard Channel Nines in the 80s but can you believe that Telstra reckons they’re now worth $4bn. And Bondy wasn’t all stupid. He bought 51 per cent of the Chilean Phone Company for just $250 million. The banks forced him to sell it on the cheap when it is now worth almost $10 billion. Rather than being in jail, Bondy could have become the richest Australian if not for those wretched banks and regulators.

And see what happens when Bondy is in jail – the Kiwis retain the America’s Cup and Australia hasn’t even got a competitor. Meanwhile, watch for Bondy to join his son John in Fimiston Mining – a junior explorer turned dotcom stock – which leapt 20 per cent to 46c on Friday.

ZIGGY IN THE PIGGY

Ziggy Switkowski’s performance at the Telstra results on Wednesday was smooth but caused a storm of protest for the rest of the week. It’s not often your stock price tumbles six per cent when you promise to shed one-third of your staff. The market was desperate for new on an internet spin-off but the board stopped it. Frontwindow hates to think what would have happened to the share price without the job cuts announcement. Still, with employment in the sector growing at nine per cent, those displaced workers should be snapped up pretty quickly. And who wants to work in a call centre anyway? You need to remember that Optus has about 7000 staff compared with Telstra’s 55,000, yet Optus is now worth almost as much as Telstra when it was first floated in November 1997. Lastly, it is worth asking what Bob Mansfield is up to at Telstra. Everyone knows Bob has been close to the Packers over the years and within two months of taking over as Telstra chairman the board is deliberating over a $10 billion takeover of PBL that would deliver Kerry his second Alan Bond. Thank god the rest of the board over-ruled it.

BANKING MERGER OF THE DECADE

Federal Finance Minister and former NSW Premier John Fahey must be shaking his head as he looks at the proposed $8 billion takeover of Colonial by the Commonwealth Bank. Afterall, it was John and his then NSW Treasurer Peter Collins who sold Colonial the old State Bank of NSW for about $576m gross in 1994 and about $270m net after warranties. John wouldn’t sell to a major bank due to fear of job losses and branch closures, so he left all the upside for the sharper boys in the private sector. Legend has it that Paul Batchelor, then Colonial’s chief financial officer, commented after finalising the bank sale with Fahey: “Gentlemen, tonight we have just pulled off the greatest bank heist in history.” Colonial was close to going broke at the time yet now it is worth $8 billion. Colonial State Bank makes about $120m a year and is worth about $2 billion of the $8 billion being offered. Smedley collects $21m worth of CBA scrip for his troubles while Batchelor is now CEO of AMP with plenty of GIO baggage on his shoulders. Meanwhile, David Murray, Australia’s grumpiest CEO, is looking like a super star at the CBA and must be pleased he knocked back the top Telstra job given all the problems Ziggy is facing at the moment. Murray’s even got his own stadium in Melbourne now where Peter Costello will be watching his beloved Bombers play. Let’s hope the Treasurer likes the idea of playing at Commonwealth Stadium. Maybe the Queen will pop in for a look next week.

OUR FIRST NET BILLIOANAIRE CLOSES ON HIS SECOND BILLION

Australia’s newest billionaire Evan Thorley left Melbourne three years ago for San Francisco. Now the chief executive of search engine company Looksmart is sitting on stock worth almost $2 billion, compared with just $140 million 12 months ago. Macquarie Bank was a foundation investor and handled the recent Australian float of Looksmart. There are several Macquarie Bank executives who put themselves ahead of the bank’s clients and turned themselves into millionaires thanks to their large allocations of Looksmart stock. Frontwindow is a Macquarie Bank client but it was probably too much to expect to get a look in on such a hot float. This will be an interesting issue to raise at their AGM in July. Evan is a bright boy who learnt the tricks of the trade at management consulting firm McKinseys. He wisely got backing from the likes of Kerry Packer, Macquarie Bank and Cox Communications and did business deals with the likes of McKinseys, British Telecom and Microsoft. Thanks to all this he’s now almost as rich as Frank Lowy and has 65 million users worldwide and 45 million in the US. Never mind the fact that Looksmart lost $120 million last year, just keep reminding yourself that the Aussie CEO is sitting on almost $2 billion worth of stock.