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Speaker 1: Welcome to Fear and Greed Q and A where we

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Speaker 1: ask and answer questions about business, investing, economics, politics and more.

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Speaker 1: Are Michael Thompson and good morning, Sean Aylmer, Good morning Michael,

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Speaker 1: and good morning to you.

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Speaker 2: Adam Lange, Hello Michael, Hello Sean.

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Speaker 1: Look, this week there was a fascinating story that emerged

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Speaker 1: midweek and it was about Domino's Pizza and it caused

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Speaker 1: the share price of Dominoes to surge seventeen percent after

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Speaker 1: this news came out. It was a report in the

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Speaker 1: Australian Financial Review that suggested that private equity group Bain

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Speaker 1: was interested in buying the struggling fast food outlet. And Sean,

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Speaker 1: it got us talking, and it got us thinking about

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Speaker 1: the way and the role that the media plays in

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Speaker 1: stories like this and the way that business can in

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Speaker 1: some ways use it. Do you want to give us

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Speaker 1: a little bit more context here in terms of.

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Speaker 3: Yeah. So, in that instance, the story was in the

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Speaker 3: Financial Review Street Talk column that is probably the highest

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Speaker 3: regarded sort of business gossip column out there. The individuals

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Speaker 3: who Sarah Thompson runs it, She's extremely extremely capable break

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Speaker 3: stories all the time. So she came out and or sorry.

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Speaker 3: Street Talk column came out. He said, Bain is interested

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Speaker 3: in buying Domino's Pizza Enterprises. Now, Domino's has really struggled

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Speaker 3: for the last few years. It's had its CEO step down.

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Speaker 3: The last two CEOs have stepped down. The major shareholder,

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Speaker 3: Jack Cowen now owns it. When the finn review, Street

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Speaker 3: Talk comes out and says Bain's interested in buying it,

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Speaker 3: shares a hold. I mean investors went, oh, this is on,

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Speaker 3: let's buy it's share price jumped seventeen percent. Now, when

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Speaker 3: you kept reading the report, it said no offer had

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Speaker 3: been made or may not have been made as yet.

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Speaker 3: Because your share price goes up sevent eight percent. You're

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Speaker 3: sitting in there as Jack Cowen was running the business.

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Speaker 3: He needs to do something because otherwise the AX is saying,

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Speaker 3: what's going on while you're share price running so hard?

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Speaker 3: So they paused trading. Dominazen came out and said, now

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Speaker 3: we have never had any discussions with Bain. We don't

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Speaker 3: know what they're talking about. The share price nd fell back,

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Speaker 3: so it was about four percent high. So from seven

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Speaker 3: percent to four percent high, closed up about seven percent.

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Speaker 3: They're about Dominae is worth about you know one point

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Speaker 3: seven one point eight billion dollars. The talk was it

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Speaker 3: was a four billion dollar deal. That sounds like a

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Speaker 3: lot of money for a one point seven billion dollar company.

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Speaker 3: We were talking, Michael, So why does this happen? When

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Speaker 3: you're in media and a journalist, you are always getting

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Speaker 3: tips about stuff that might happen. People use you.

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Speaker 2: Now.

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Speaker 3: The thing about the Street Talk column, it is so

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Speaker 3: good that that would not have been written without many,

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Speaker 3: many people checking that it was correct to some extent.

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Speaker 3: So it sort of.

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Speaker 1: Before you go too far down this path, Sean, it

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Speaker 1: might be worth you actually, just you have worked in

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Speaker 1: this space that you have worked at.

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Speaker 3: The finn yep, and what you know is that people

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Speaker 3: will get in touch with you saying, hey, no one

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Speaker 3: knows this, but now there are all sorts of legal

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Speaker 3: implications in this. And when you get a story, get

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Speaker 3: a tip, you don't just run it, you check it.

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Speaker 3: And we always had you know, you need two independent,

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Speaker 3: verifiable sources before you could run anything. And I don't

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Speaker 3: doubt that Street Talk and the guys at Street Talk

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Speaker 3: did that because their reputation depends on it. So let's

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Speaker 3: say they got a media relations person who said it

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Speaker 3: and then they verified it from someone independently. They said, well,

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Speaker 3: Bain's thinking about this, and if you read the story closely,

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Speaker 3: they didn't say Bain's doing it. They said they're thinking

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Speaker 3: about it, and that's what happened. Having said that, it's

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Speaker 3: quite easy someone on that side of things could have said,

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Speaker 3: I wonder whether this is a good idea or not.

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Speaker 3: Let's just float it in the media and what people

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Speaker 3: think of it. So over the and I'm not sure

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Speaker 3: that Baine is an example of this, but over the

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Speaker 3: years I was quite out myself on this. People have

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Speaker 3: told you to float stories which you thought were correct,

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Speaker 3: but although were doing, we're using the media to see

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Speaker 3: the response. So in my instance and I'm I'm disappointed

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Speaker 3: in myself. Many years ago, as a banking reporter for

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Speaker 3: the finn Review, Peters Costello was the treasurer, I was

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Speaker 3: told quite credibly that there's going to be a big

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Speaker 3: bank merger. One of the two banks we're going to merge.

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Speaker 3: I went to Peter Costello's office and spoke to the

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Speaker 3: media relations personal woman called Nicki Savo, who was very

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Speaker 3: good and Nicki came back to me and said, no,

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Speaker 3: that's not happening. I more or less ignored them because

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Speaker 3: my sources were really good and wrote that is very

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Speaker 3: possible that would happen.

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Speaker 1: Now.

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Speaker 3: Nicky Sava wrote a book many years later and said

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Speaker 3: that I just didn't listen to the response, and she

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Speaker 3: was one hundred percent correct. I feel bad about that,

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Speaker 3: but I believed my sources. But in hindsight I look

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Speaker 3: back at that the treasurer had told me that wasn't happening,

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Speaker 3: or Nikki hadn't, and she said, now I asked a

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Speaker 3: treasure he said, I know nothing about it. I should

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Speaker 3: have taken them at face value, but I kind of

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Speaker 3: went with the person people with vested interests that had

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Speaker 3: been speaking to me about it, and I was wrong,

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Speaker 3: without a doubt. I don't know whether that's the case

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Speaker 3: with Baying in Dominoes, but that happens reasonably regularly in journalism,

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Speaker 3: that people want you to write something to float an

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Speaker 3: idea even though there's not a lot of racity to it.

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Speaker 3: I can say that was a case in my case.

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Speaker 3: I can't say necessarily in the Domino's bain case.

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Speaker 2: Sean does this? I mean, we've seen something happened with

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Speaker 2: Jim Chalmers in Division two ninety six superannuation regulation. Right,

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Speaker 2: that took a long time to work its way through

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Speaker 2: the market and feedback. But do you think governments use

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Speaker 2: the media in the same way.

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Speaker 3: Oppositions definitely use media in the same way. So you

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Speaker 3: said centered estimates, I like playing those in the last

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Speaker 3: couple of weeks. The opposition would come to the media,

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Speaker 3: come to the press gallery and say what should I

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Speaker 3: be asking? Right, and you could feed them questions. I

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Speaker 3: don't blame the opposition necessarily for that. They're very busy

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Speaker 3: people and so you know, it's some sort of n issues.

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Speaker 3: They use this all the time. I think the government

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Speaker 3: uses media less because they can't afford to use us

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Speaker 3: as much. I think with that division the superannuation text,

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Speaker 3: that was more That was more ab and easiest office

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Speaker 3: saying hey, come on, charmers, you've.

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Speaker 2: Got this time out of this.

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Speaker 3: Yeah. But I mean broadly, the relationship between media and business,

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Speaker 3: media and government, it's not tenuous. They both rely on

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Speaker 3: each other. But because they do rely on each other,

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Speaker 3: they're kindness sometimes our favors.

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Speaker 2: I can imagine that tension sometimes gets healthy and sometimes

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Speaker 2: maybe drifts into the unhealthy too.

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Speaker 3: I mean, there are people who undoubtedly would write stories,

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Speaker 3: and I'd say, why are we writing this story? They say,

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Speaker 3: we just need to write this. It's kind of harmless.

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Speaker 3: But I know I'm in a favor and that stuff

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Speaker 3: definitely went on.

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Speaker 2: Wow.

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Speaker 1: Oh, I'll tell you what. Every week we're just going

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Speaker 1: to get an insight now into.

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Speaker 2: I find the curtain. Yes, as a.

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Speaker 1: Veteran journalist, Sean, there is so much that you can

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Speaker 1: tell us.

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Speaker 3: Maybe maybe I say too much though no no, oh Sean.

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Speaker 1: Never no, tell us more, tell us more, but not

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Speaker 1: this week. We are out of time this week, Sean.

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Speaker 1: Thank you very much, Thank you, and thank you Adam,

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Speaker 1: thank you Michael. If you've got something that you'd like

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Speaker 1: to know, and particularly if it is about the way

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Speaker 1: the media works or the way business and media and

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Speaker 1: politics and media and everyone all kind of works together,

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Speaker 1: and send it on through. Go to LinkedIn or Facebook

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Speaker 1: or Instagram, or head to our website Fearangreed dot com

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Speaker 1: dot au and send your question through and we will

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Speaker 1: get to it very very soon. I'm Michael Thompson and

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Speaker 1: this is Feer and Greed Q and a