Steve McCann's drag Star act
McCann is about the worst advert for listed company capitalism going around.
Star Entertainment's December-half accounts were finally released last month, just as soon as the failing casino group clinched a (temporary) rescue deal with its largest shareholder Bruce Mathieson and US gaming giant Bally's.
Buried deep in the notes to the financial statements was an item entitled "Security over Group CEO and MD remuneration", explaining that $12.1 million of assets on Star's balance sheet are CEO Steve McCann's salary, short-term incentives and retention bonuses for FY25 and FY26 set aside in Star's underground vault (which only a scan of McCann's retinas can unseal). "Actual payments of these amounts are recovered from escrow as and when they are made by the company".
Of course, it's pure pantomime using the label "incentive" or "bonus" when the only hurdle on those payments is him "not having resigned or being terminated for cause". Even his $5 million sign-on performance rights are qualified by the sole "performance" hurdle of still being there when they vest in July 2027. But they vest immediately upon any "trigger event", which the Bally's deal is. That hefty chunk of change will, upon Bally's convertible notes becoming equity, sail into McCann's pocket.
This extreme arrangement illustrates what we already knew about the worst of executive remuneration in Australia: bonuses aren't bonuses at all – they're fixed pay in drag. Steve McCann is just the biggest pub trivia drag queen in Australian business. Stephanie McDoshpants is her stage name and Star's directors have slipped a few lazy million under her garter.