$110m for Promina float hangers-on

Floats are like onions. They have layers. And in the case of Promina, there's $110 million to peel back, slice, dice and dish out to the horde of brokers, advisers, lawyers, accountants and assorted Visigoths to the offer.

By far the largest ladle from the gravy train will be doled out to the panel of brokers flogging the offer worldwide, led by Goldman Sachs and MacBank.

Almost $58 million in fees will trickle down to the broking syndicate if Promina sells at $2.

From Goldmans, those keeping an eye on their bonus pool yesterday included executive directors Mike Everett and John Anderson, along with team members Ed Eason and Ian Taylor.

Macquarie also sent a mini-bus to hold up the side which carried John Green, Neil Watson, Mark Warburton and Marianne Birch.

The leading team's eagerness was heightened by the prospect of a 0.5 per cent ``incentive fee" payable at the ``absolute discretion" of the Poms if the joint global co-ordinators do a good job.

Goldman, for its part, might want to put in a good showing to impress Virgin Blue, contemplating its own syndicate of advisers for a float later this year.

Lawyers Freehills, led by partner Phillipa Stone, will take out $3.2 million, while counterparts across the Tasman, Simpson Grierson, gets $1.2 million.

Those crazy party-types over at actuaries Trowbridge Deloitte and Ernst & Young ABC will cop almost a million each, while PWC, as investigating accountant, gets a juicy $4.3 million.

The total fees constitute 5 per cent of the total offer proceeds (including the handy greenshoe facility to prop up Promina's aftermarket) at $2 a share.

The bill will be split between offspring and parent to the tune of $50 million and $60 million respectively.

A bit for the boss

The whack-up isn't limited to advisers surrounding the offer.

Inside the Promina circus tent, bespectacled chief Michael Wilkins he was boss of fund manager Tyndall will be paid a maximum of $2.13 million this year.

In an exercise akin to peering through open curtains at dusk, we can tell you his pay will comprise an $850,000 base for the year to the end of December, plus a cash bonus of up to $765,000 if he achieves certain objectives set by the board.

Wilko'll also get $510,000 in Promina paper, issued over three years and again based on performance hurdles.

That should help keep his wife and three kids on side, who are none too happy at the prospect of dad being away over Easter on the roadshow.

Still, his $2.1 million buys a lot of hot cross buns and compares with a $2.57 million package last year for Mike Hawker over at IAG, who manages a revenue base about one-third bigger than Promina's.

As for the board, chairman Leo Tutt (busy bee as top of the table also at MIM and Crane) takes a total of $210,000. That compares with James Strong's annual fee at IAG of $300,000.

And finally, just in case it all comes a cropper and Wilko gets the bullet, the prospectus reveals he would be awarded a Paul Batchelor Memorial Solatium of up to $2 million.

Push round the world

Wilko and his mates from Goldmans and MacBank are packing their kit bags for some serious air miles pushing this thing.

Undeterred by the war, the odd killer sniffle or act of terror, the brave team will take in Milan, Frankfurt, Paris, London, Edinburgh and Glasgow, along with Hong Kong and Singapore. Also on the schedule is a comprehensive tour of the US and NZ.

Few souls, however, were prepared to take to the trip to the giddy streets of Hong Kong and the weekend's CSFB Sevens rugby tournament.

The close spectator quarters deterred sports-loving but health conscious execs, who were in town anyway for the CSFB Investment Conference.

So there were emptier than usual corporate boxes at the Football Club with CSFB, UBS Warburg, Standard Chartered, JP Morgan, CB Richard Ellis and Jones Lang LaSalle all vying for client attention.

Those who did attend were mostly expats.

It just got blacker

Having not exactly covered himself in glory as BHP chairman, Jerry Ellis still lacks the golden touch, if his latest mining adventure, Black Range Minerals, is any indicator.

Ellis joined Black Range just on three years ago after he, ahem, retired from BHP's board following costly misadventures like Magma Copper.

So far he and Black Range boss Jim Askew have met a similar lack of success in getting the miner's Syerston laterite nickel project near Dubbo up and running.

The stock has sunk from 30c to penny dreadful status, at last check 1.8c, since Ellis came aboard, and now along with the fellow directors Ellis has ``resolved to appoint an administrator" after talks with bankers at CIBC Australia and a potential financier hit a snag.

Black Range needs $1.5 million to keep its lenders happy but so far has raised only $531,000. Last night the board was trying to nut out a deal for CIBC, also a substantial shareholder, to extend its loan facility until June 2004, but Black Range's ``ability to continue as a going concern is dependant upon ... the additional capital".

And Ellis has a personal reference point. The Rhodes scholar is the proud owner of 20,000 Black Range shares and 1 million options with strike prices ranging from 40c to 50c.

Also watching with interest is Perth mining identity Danny Hill, whose Saracen Mineral's holds a 13 per cent stake.

Bit of a change

Close of books for the end of the quarter generated a flurry of activity yesterday as brokers dressed the windows for maximum market share to report back to foreign head office.

SSB and JP Morgan were in there cranking, to emerge with second and third rankings of 10.1 per cent and 8.2 per cent of the total market respectively so far this year.

But the pair are still behind top-of-the-pops broker UBS Warburg at 12 per cent, which under equities head John Steinthal has steadily increased its share from about 8 per cent over the past four years. Excluding options, the Warburglars were still numero uno with share of 11 per cent.

Goldman Sachs has slipped out of the top 10 to 13th place with a total share of just 1.8 per cent, which when combined with its new dance partner JB Were & Sons (fourth possie with 8.2 per cent) shoots to third place and a share of 10 per cent.

Still some way to go though.