THE job cuts flow at Myer, with marketing chief Paul Bonnici walking the plank ahead of the retailer awarding a key $60 million advertising deal in the new year.
Bonnici has left the marketing department along with 20 staff — 12 have taken redundancy and the rest have been given jobs elsewhere in the Myer empire — as the retailer tightens operations.
Chief executive Bernie Brookes will lead the team that makes the crucial decision on which of three agencies will win the lucrative Myer contract in February.
Myer is in the midst making a decision about whether M&C Saatchi, Grey and incumbent firm Badjar Ogilvy will lead the company's advertising campaigns from next year.
The rumour mill suggests Bonnici and Brookes did not see eye to eye over the creative direction for Myer's campaigns.
In an email to staff, Brookes wrote: "Paul will not be replaced and Adam Stapleton will maintain his current role reporting through to myself. His title will be general manager marketing."
In addition to Bonnici's departure, PR and corporate affairs executive Mitch Catlin has been promoted to general manager communications, and will be responsible for events as well as public relations and communications. He will report directly to Brookes.
According to Catlin, a team of people will make the crucial decision on which agency gets the Myer deal.
"That has always been the process, and Paul leaving won't change that," he said. "It won't be Bernie's decision alone. It never was, and won't be now."
Since private equity owners Texas Pacific Group took control of Myer a little over two years ago, support staff numbers have been cut by 20 per cent.
Myer yesterday hit back at rumours that 70 retail staff have been axed from its flagship city store a week before Christmas.
That rumoured cut would save 3000 working hours in the lead-up to Christmas. The numbers came from two of Myer's concessions, who complained that their staff have been selling other Myer stock.
Catlin categorically denied the rumour: "That is simply not the case, and I certainly haven't heard anything like that at all," he said.
"We have marginally fewer Christmas casuals this year, but that decision was made back in February and March when we were hiring."
Spelling it out
THE new director of electronics retailer Strathfield Group, Vaz Hovanessian, has emailed and telephoned some business associates with an explanation for the multiple spellings of his name on official documents.
Full Disclosure uncovered Australian Securities and Investments Commission records that show Hovanessian has 10 different spellings of his name. He is also listed as being born in six different cities.
He is listed as Vaz, Varrick, Vasrick, Vazerick, Vazric, Vazrick and Vazrik Hovanessian. Add to that two further versions of his name — Vaz and Vazrick — in the different surname spelling Hovanession, and one listing as Vazrick Hovannesian.
Those ASIC records list his birthplace as Soleman, Soleiman and Soulemen in Iran, Tehran in Iran as well as Sydney and the Solomon Islands.
Hovanessian has not responded to questions about the documents, but has contacted fellow directors.
"This particular journalist (Mark Hawthorne) has been trying to smear dirt over my name," he wrote to directors of Fairstar Resources.
"I have never been known by any other name other than Vaz or Vazrick Hovanessian in all of the 36 years I have lived in Australia. The variations of the names referred to are just different ways people may have written my name."
According to Hovanessian, the variations of his name are honest errors. "It is possible that someone may have lodged a form with ASIC with an incorrect spelling, but it would have only been an innocent error or typo only," he wrote. "I don't know how Solomon Islands crept in there."
His explanation for the different spellings of Soleiman, in Iran, where his passport lists him as being born, is: "The name of the town is such that someone not being familiar with it may spell it with certain variations, such as Soleman, Solman." One might suggest that doesn't quite explain his simultaneous birth in Sydney. Or Tehran.
A teary blunder
ALSO having some problems with the spelling is the person writing press releases for technology company Lumacom.
It has issued an ASX announcement confirming the appointment of Alexander Hewlett as managing director.
Hewlett apparently arrives at Lumacom after a consulting role with a "mid-tear iron ore development company".
Yes, more than a few iron ore companies shed tears in recent months. A few have even been in full tears, as their share prices slump.
Melbourne's Ponzi
THE world has gone Ponzi scheme mad, with news of Bernard Madoff's remarkable fraud in the United States.
The former Nasdaq chairman ran a massive pyramid-type investment scheme that cost investors $US50 billion, and his name has already being used for puns, such as "he made-off with our money".
But Melbourne had seen its own Ponzi scheme conviction.
Spartaco Fasciale, of Moonee Ponds, was sentenced in the Melbourne County Court yesterday to six years in prison after being convicted on four counts of obtaining a financial advantage by deception, 10 counts of dishonestly obtaining property by deception and 14 counts of breaching directors' duties.
ASIC investigated Fasciale Futures Trading and found that nine people invested more than $1.4 million with the company. Fasciale lost more than $250,000 trading on futures contracts, and used the remaining money to pay returns to investors and "cover his own lifestyle expenses", according to ASIC.
Full Disclosure is taking a break for the holiday season, and will return in January.
