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Well, it seems Mr Milliner wasn’t completely miserly. He has, after all, invited the firm’s Sydney partners to a lavish 5-course dinner at a famous harbourside restaurant. Says our hungry spy from Mallesons Sydney:
All partners in the Sydney office were invited with Robert Milliner as the gracious host. The dinner is being held this month but I don’t know the exact date. Catalina is an icon Sydney restaurant right on the harbour at Rose Bay in Ssydney’s Eastern Suburbs.
For those who, like us, are unfamiliar with the delights of harbour-side dining at Catalina:
The restaurant was designed as a homage to the beauty of Sydney Harbour. Diners have a panoramic view of Sydney Harbour at water-level, punctuated only by the comings and goings of a working harbour, and incoming commuter sea planes based in front of the restaurant.
… seafood is a Catalina specialty. Oysters are shucked to order, and long-standing relationships with Sydney’s leading suppliers provide us with the best line-caught fish. The highest quality meat and poultry are sourced from all over Australia.
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Double roasted pasture-raised free range Burrawong duck à l’orange ($48)
Roasted baby chicken with vanilla carrot purée, heirloom carrots, peas and asparagus ($42)
Pan roasted lamb rack with chive spaetzle, baby beetroots and jerusalem artichoke crisps ($46)
Riverine beef tenderloin with olive potato gnocchi, spinach, and sautéed exotic mushrooms ($46)
Roasted suckling pig with apple purée, braised red cabbage and raisins. A Catalina signature dish ($99)
This will apparently be a “no expense spared celebration”, including water taxis to and from the office. Sign us up. We can only hope the waters won’t be too choppy. We can’t imagine the partners would hold their meals very well.
But celebrating what, exactly? We invite speculation.
Meanwhile, the Sydney business services department has little to celebrate. According to our spy:
The partners are scrimping and saving every dollar including not spending the $300 to fix a coffee machine for staff.
Evidently the belt tightening does not extend to the partners. By our calculations, suckling pig, entrees, desserts and wine for the 100-odd Sydney partners will come to about, oh, $24,000. That’s enough to buy 4 coffee machines for every business services employee. And after 5 courses, the belts will be loose indeed.
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I’m not sure I understand why the partners of MSJ are being criticised for dining at Catalinas. (Although isn’t Catalinas a bit mid nineties? Maybe the idea is to reminisce about the good old days.) The c.$24k you estimate that the evening will cost will come out of the firm’s profits. Which would otherwise have been distributed to the partners. So they are spending their own money. (Although if you are a junior partner you are subsidising those more wealthy senior partners. Make sure you drink more than your fair share, you will never have it so good. Those partners who became such in the later 80′s/early 90′s have enjoyed the fat decades. Most of them made their wealth – almost invisibly and without any conscious investment decision – in real estate in a manner that it is unlikely to be replicated again.)
Besides, the Malleys partners are hardly going to go for an all-you-can-eat buffet from Fortuna Court now, are they? Plenty of MSJ associates would be dismayed if they did (not much to aspire to).
It is hard to argue that there are no more worthy things for the MSJ partners to spend their money on than a night on the piss on the harbour. Coffee machines for business service staff might be one of them. Or maybe not. It’s their money they are spending. They don’t buy the coffee machines because they have calculated that they don’t have to – the business will continue to function because business services staff will grumble a bit and then use a kettle and make their own instant coffee. If it transpires that they got the calculation wrong – if business services pruductivity declines because business services staff spend all morning out getting coffee – then their business will suffer and maybe they will then buy coffee machines. But this is the kind of decision that is being taken in every professional services firm in the country. The screws are tightening as the current crop of partners try to protect profitability. Just like the frog in boiling water. Professional staff are not immune.
Run away, run away!
Pure and utter greed.
^ As much as I hate to say it, I agree.
Partners own the firm. It’s their money. Going out for a celebratory (or whatever) dinner is for from outrageously indulgent.
If two partners went to a restaurant, would that be news? No, so why is it if a group of them do?
Non-story.
I thought the article was going to be about the partners slumming it at a one-hat restaurant. Surely they deserve better?
Phil Aetley – Junior Partners subsidising senior partners – other way around – the senior partners (being entitled to the greater share of profit) are subsidising the junior partners dinner.
I agree though – going out to dinner is hardly a revelation. And Catalina… was Quay not available ??
Ugh..The thought of so many Mallies partners together in one place gives me chills..
David – I’d hazard a guess that in a lockstep system (I have lost sight of whether Malleys is a pure lockstep) junior partners invariably earn proportionately more than than they take out, so there’s an inherent element of subsidy built into the system. Assume junior partner takes home $500, senior partner $750, if they all pay the same amount for dinner on the night (rather than by reference to drawings) then aren’t the junior partners subsidising the senior partners? Although you are probably right, I have probably incorrectly assumed all partners will wake up slightly the worse for wear having gone Dutch on the bill – when in fact it is more likely that the bill will be invoiced direct to Mallesons, and thus come out before calculating profits available for distribution. Although doesn’t this mean that there is no (additional) subsidising at all as cost of the evening will be split in the same proportion as profits?
Regardless of the math, I suggest it would be safer for the junior partners to assume they are getting shafted somewhere along the line. On this basis it’s simply common sense to order to the lobster and Krug.
i think the whole point is shave a few thousand dollars of their indulgent dinner and give staff one of the few benefits they receive. Staff drinks were culled from weekly to monthly. Wages, whilst frequently touted as market, and yet are consistently below the market average.
if I was a client, I would be looking long and hard at my bills, after all, ultimately it’s their clients money they are spending.
They screw staff on pay every year, trotting out the same old excuses time after time after time, and yet despite Milliner’s gloomy economic forecasts there’s still enough cash in the bank for a $24 grand (or more) dinner? Are you kidding me!?
Give the people their coffee! Nothing wrong with a nice dining experience for senior lawyers. Bear in mind though, the rationale for giving staff quality in-house coffee was not flavoured by the milk of human kindness. It’s to reduce lost productivity costs in time spent by staff leaving the office for coffee breaks.