Craig Scroggie, speed demon
The Ginger Maniac has run NEXTDC off the road.
It's been eight years since I first raised the alarm over the conspicuous maladjustment of NEXTDC chief executive Craig Scroggie. Being from Brisbane was already a lead indicator of trouble, but driving a Ferrari with vanity number plates around Brisbane placed the Scroggmeister in a reserve category of mug lair with former Domino's televangelist Don Meij. Of course, any Ferrari owner who built their Aussie equities portfolio around Domino's and NEXTDC will now be in the process of downgrading to a Suzuki Swift.
It is not hindsight bias to say Scroggie was a walking, talking red flag. The Ginger Maniac – as I christened him – felt compelled to boast on Instagram about his luxe life as a speed demon long before he felt compelled to boast on LinkedIn about his superhuman efforts as a powerlifter and an optimised being. It is therefore completely unsurprising he has now run NEXTDC off the road and wrapped it around a tree.
The company's shares fell 42 per cent on Wednesday after the company revealed a crippling earnings downgrade – and precarious balance sheet – as a result of delayed electricity upgrades to its M3 data centre in Melbourne's West Footscray.
All of a sudden, data centres face the dual tsunamis of constrained capital and community backlash against their operating impact. NEXTDC is demonstrating this in technicolour.
The headline issue for M3 is that its electricity needs to be conveyed at triple the voltage of its neighbouring residential power users and this means M3's electricity distributor, Jemena, erecting 22-metre concrete poles carrying overhead power lines to do so. Victoria's Labor government – which is trying to save the furniture, not Craig Scroggie's $112 million of bonus shares – and the local council have brought that roll-out to a screeching halt.
