Read Online Dirty Fracking Business by Peter Ralph - Free Book Online

he had enormous influence and, while not a member of CEGL’s board, major decisions were rarely taken without his tacit approval. About the same age as Harbrow, his strengths lay in his uncanny knack to sniff out a good deal, an elephant-like memory, his ability to make figures talk without the need for computers and an overbearing negotiating style which centred on the deal being done at his price or not at all. In just fifteen years he had managed to increase the size of Royal fiftyfold. Shareholders loved him and he was on an enormous salary and options package but his one weakness ensured that his package was never enough to make ends meet. She was platinum blonde, a real-life Barbie twenty-five years his junior, who had been a hat check girl at one of the clubs when Joe, a happily married man, had walked in one night and fallen head over heels in love with her. The divorce was messy, drawn out and expensive, but not nearly as costly as marrying young Trish. She spent fifty thousand pounds a month on clothes and cosmetics, had a chauffeur-driven limousine and a passion but not a taste for art, on which she squandered millions. Joe Biederman was a brilliant investor and one of the very few men whom Harbrow deferred to.
    Phillip Bancroft was senior partner of Bancroft & Coulter, a second-tier Sydney stockbroking firm. He had convinced his clients to take huge risks and buy shares in CEGL just as Harbrow was implementing his expansion plans. Not a cent of his own money was invested but he had made a personal fortune from the free options that had been issued to him for risking his clients’ money. Those clients had made twenty times their initial investment and thought that Bancroft was an investment guru - had they known what he had done, they may not have held him in such high esteem. He was particularly sensitive about anything that adversely affected the company’s share price and Harbrow knew he would support the actions he had taken to bring the Advocate to heel .
    Harbrow had appointed Harold Llewellyn so that he could be introduced to and access heads of business, finance and government, whereas he had appointed the rough-around-the-edges Vic Bezzina so that he could be informed of the weaknesses of those powerful people, their hidden skeletons and what motivated them. Bezzina was an ex-federal policeman who had built a unique business, which provided discreet security itineraries and investigatory services for heads of corporations and government leaders. He employed ex-federal and state police, ex-ASIO operatives, ex-tax office investigators and even had two former CIA spooks on his payroll. Over the years, he had built up dirt files that Edgar Hoover would have been proud of, on senior industry and government figures and those who posed a threat to his exclusive clientele. One of his clients was Newtower Iron & Steel and, when the greenies and other radical groups started picketing CEGL’s annual general meetings, blockading properties and generally making nuisances of themselves, Sir Richard Crichton-Smythe suggested to Harbrow that his problems might be solved if he met with Bezzina. Soon after their meeting, Harbrow had dossiers on all those in positions of power who were opposed to coal seam gas development, but what really impressed him about Bezzina was that he seemed to have the power to influence the Federal Police to hassle and restrain the green radicals who had been causing CEGL trouble. Like the other non-executive directors, Bezzina negotiated a very generous fee and a remuneration and benefits package which Harbrow did not attempt to bargain down, as he liked the idea of his directors being indebted to him.
    He gave no thought to contacting the ruthlessly ambitious Moira Raymond, who openly aspired to his job. Unfortunately she had the ear and support of Harold Llewellyn who doted on her, and Harbrow often wondered whether they had been sexually involved. Sir Richard Crichton-Smythe also sang