Apart from contributing feisty comments to Crikey stories, former FAI Insurance CEO and jailbird Rodney Adler is clearly keeping busy mingling with old mates.

As a long-time backer of Gerard Henderson, it was no surprise Adler found himself mingling with the glitterati at The Star gambling den on Thursday night along with 899 other guests at the Sydney Institute’s annual dinner.

The Australian’s Margin Call column did a good job writing up the soiree in today’s paper and scored a pearler of a picture of embattled Seven West Media legal boss Bruce McWilliam with his arm around a grumpy-looking Henderson, who had Rodney Adler and his wife, Lyndi, on the other side.

So why would Bruce McWilliam, the Prime Minister’s best mate and chief strategist in the Amber Harrison fiasco, be happy to be pictured alongside someone like Adler?

Well, as Joe Aston has reported in the AFR, Bruce McWilliam met his wife, Nicky, at the Adler wedding.

The ALP recently attempted to smear Malcolm Turnbull for his role advising Rodney Adler’s FAI when it was taken over by HIH Insurance — an acquisition that contributed meaningfully to the HIH collapse.

And given the PM also recently took steps to avoid being photographed with Seven West Media CEO Tim Worner at a Swans game, the beaming Bruce McWilliam is not exactly being discreet about all these colourful connections in Sydney.