Wednesday 24 October 2012

City Tattersalls Club - Big Salaries for Dismal Performance (Part 1)

Money is being wasted left, right and centre at City Tatts.

Nowhere is there greater waste than in the inflated salaries given to top management for dismal performance. Here is an introduction to where members money is being wasted on salaries.

Tony Guilfoyle
Guilfoyle has been a failure as CEO from day one. Almost everything he has tried has been a flop. If you were to examine his top 10 projects as CEO, whether restaurants, building jobs, property purchases or just general management duties, you would find that 9 of them are failures, sometimes hilariously so. In fact, you will have to look hard to find the one that is a success. But a track record of failure is no longer a barrier for top management at City Tatts. Instead they get increases and bonuses. Here is what City Tatts has paid Guilfoyle since he became CEO -

Year Ended 31 December 2004          $410,000
Year Ended 31 December 2005          $410,000
Year Ended 31 December 2006          $430,000
Year Ended 31 December 2007          $430,000
Year Ended 31 December 2008          $460,000
Year Ended 31 December 2009          $530,000
Year Ended 31 December 2010          $540,000
Year Ended 31 December 2011          $540,000

Some things about City Tatts are so strange that it is no wonder people don't believe them when they are told for the first time. Here is someone who clearly has no ability of any kind to run the Club and yet he has been given $3,750,000 in 8 years. And the best part is - he is only there 3 days a week !

Michelle Abbey - Million Dollar Baby !
Michelle Abbey was the first high profile appointment by Guilfoyle after he became CEO. She was paid an insane salary of $250,000 per year as Marketing Director and was a total failure. In the four years she was at the Club she received a cool $1 million. She would not have brought in enough revenue to cover her own salary, never mind contribute anything to the Club.

She is also a perfect example of everything that has gone wrong with City Tatts. The whole notion of a Marketing Director on $250,000 at City Tattersalls Club is ridiculous. The Club's facilities, lacation and tradition provide all the promotion necessary. City Tatts was a thriving club for years without any Marketing Director. And, with the greatly increased population living in the city centre, it should be doing even better now.

There is another reason why paying someone $250,000 a year to promote the Club is nonsense. At the same time that Guilfoyle hired her to promote the Club, he started to take away the very things that used to bring people to the Club !  So the Smorgasboard (probably the Club's greatest attraction) was closed down, Then entertainment was reduced and eventually stopped. Other restaurants and bars were closed before spending millions on new restaurants and bars that members rejected. It simply makes no sense to pay huge salaries to attract people to the Club while you remove the very things that have proven in the past to attract people to the Club.

Members are being deceived in other ways by these insane salaries. By paying someone $250,000 a year, Guilfoyle is trying to convince everyone that City Tatts is a large complex business that is difficult to run. In fact, it is a very simple operation that anyone could run using basic common sense. If you stopped somebody at random walking past the front door they would run the Club better than it is now.

Trevelyan Bale
Trevelyan Bale was a chef who was hired on a salary of $250,000. That, in itself, tells you how insane City Tatts had become by then. The idea of paying $250,000 for a chef in any club is madness but squandering members' money was in full swing by then. (Bale's salary dropped to around the $200,000 mark later - we're not sure why.) Meanwhile, of course, the majority of the staff were paid minimum wages.

It goes without saying that he was a total failure. During the time he was there, restaurants were probably the worst performing part of the Club. The losses racked up while he was in charge were staggering. Someone calculated that restaurants and bars lost over $4 million while he was there. Obviously his own bloated salary contributed to these losses, but aside from that there must have been astonishing incompetence to lose that kind of money.

What is even more amazing is that restaurants and bars used to do well at City Tatts. In the past they were run much better by people on half that salary. And don't forget that back then each restaurant had it's own kitchen. By the time Bale arrived the Club had a centralised kitchen which was supposed to provide big savings. So, if anything, it should have been easier for him. So, either he is even more incompetent than he appears or the centralised kitchen was another grandiose building project that failed.

Jan Ellks
Jan Ellks is Guilfoyle's secretary. We are not sure what her qualifications were to get the job but it should be a fairly easy job given that Guilfoyle is only there three days a week on average. But this is City Tatts, so it will not surprise you to learn that she is now paid $135,000 a year !  That's right - City Tatts pays Jan Elks $135,000 a year.

This is how members' money is being wasted. Do you really think that Jan Elks would get $135,000 a year if Kevin Smith or Bill Hurley were paying it from their own pockets ?  Not a chance - but if members are paying it (and the members don't know) then don't worry about it. Incidentally, we have checked around the CBD and the maximum salary for what she actually does is $50,000. So, how much has she been overpaid in the five years she's been there - $200,000? $300,000?  How's that for waste?

Save City Tatts Committee

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