HERE'S a new potential earnings stream for Australia's largest land and cattle owner, AACo. It could sell tickets to its shareholder meetings - they are more entertaining than a Pink concert and have more biffo than a Mundine fight.
If you live in Brisbane an event is set for next Friday. The proceeds could go some way to clawing back some of the profit lost this year from poor cattle prices, currency and adverse weather conditions.
The trouble is that the real issues, like how much money this company makes and who controls it, are being overwhelmed by one of the most politicised boardrooms in Australian corporate history.
There is something about these vast rural enterprises that draws so many investors into wanting to own them, including some of the biggest players, whose carcasses now litter this particular piece of corporate territory.
However, this episode has also tended to ignore the fact that the size of the investment return is to a large extent outside management or ownership control.
Weather and exchange rates are the swing factors that largely shape whether there is money to be made from these companies. The value of the land has some stability but the earnings and the value of the inventory - cattle and whatever crop is planted - can vary wildly from season to season.
As such, this could be a metaphor for the way control and governance of AACo has gyrated over the past five years.
Next Friday the shareholders will be asked to decide between three board options.
The first is to maintain the incumbent board. The second is for some of the existing board to be retained and a few new people to be added. The third is a ticket that contains only new representatives.
But here is the weird thing: as far as board nominations are concerned there is overlap between option one and two, and between option two and three.
And given that option two is supported by the new major shareholder with 19.9 per cent of the votes, my money would be on it succeeding.
Further, it is backed by the two key corporate governance groups and the Australian Shareholders Association.
As a corporate deal it had a look of outrageousness about it.
And IFFCO voted it down. But there was another agenda.
If Myer was out of the picture, IFFCO would be the major shareholder, and with no other contenders.
It is difficult to take a position on whether the Myers deal was all right. It was so agenda-ridden that it was poorly viewed by many shareholders and ultimately voted down - with a lot of help, of course, from IFFCO.
There was insufficient financial detail about the properties AACo was buying to make an assessment either way.
The independent expert gave it a tick and the current chairman, Brett Heading, maintains it was a great deal that was poorly marketed to shareholders.
However, as of next Friday it probably will not matter what Heading thinks.
He is ticket one, which will basically keep him in the job. But he is not on the IFFCO ticket or the number three ticket that supports IFFCO but not the independents.
However, it is not the detail that matters here. The key issue is that IFFCO will probably be in control by next Friday - its board will be installed and there will be no screams to government about foreigners getting their hands on our land.
It will have been executed cleverly and by stealth.
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