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A Fox sighting in the billionaires’ playground of the Mediterranean has shown Andrew Fox keeping fast-lane company.
Fox, a director of Linfox Australia, popped up in a social media snap on Wednesday with F1 chief executive Stefano Domenicali, Flavio Briatore, executive adviser to the Alpine F1 team, and MotoGP identity Paolo Campinoti on a boat deck while on a European summer sojourn.
The significance of the matching board shorts is unknown for (from left) Stefano Domenicali, Flavio Briatore, Paolo Campinoti and Andrew Fox enjoying the European summer. Instagram/@briatoreflavio
The four – who we’re told were off Sardinia – appeared to have swapped supercars for a superyacht.
“At sea with Stefano, Paolo and Andrew,” the caption on Briatore’s verified Instagram read.
Exactly what is the significance of the matching turtle-print board shorts they were all sporting is unclear. Can’t imagine these guys needed a buy-in-bulk discount.
CBD had to wonder whether this meeting up of motorsport maestros took place on Volpini 2, the 57.7-metre superyacht owned by Fox’s dad, Lindsay – Volpini, by the way, translates to little fox – but a source said no, that was not the case.
Paula and Lindsay Fox were in Nice this week.Paul Rovere
Volpini 2 was at Nice in the south of France on Wednesday night with Fox senior and his wife Paula enjoying their annual break on the boat.
Their getaway has come at a good time after a ruckus in their ranks around the role of Lindsay’s eldest son, Peter, in the family business became headline news last month.
Back to the boys on the boat, Domenicali, Briatore and Campinoti are mates. They regularly catch up when the grand prix carnival hits Melbourne. In fact, it was in March that the band got together for not just F1, but a night at the footy.
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After spending raceday at the track at Albert Park, Fox took Domenicali, Briatore and Campinoti along with Liberty Media (owners of F1 globally) chairman Dob Bennett, to the MCG to watch Collingwood play St Kilda.
Keeping it real, the group shunned a private box and instead took in the game from reserved seating in the outer – quite different from the grids and garages they were used to.
With the next race of this year’s F1 calendar taking place in Belgium this weekend, no doubt the F1 bigwigs have already swapped superyachts for chicanes.
Sandilands’ gamble on new gig
It is going to take a lot of fans willing to fork out $100 for Kyle Sandilands to return to the easy cash flow he was used to while on the books at ARN.
Under the pricing structure for Sandilands’ new show, Kyle Sandilands Live, CBD hears, devotees of his unique form of entertainment will be asked to fork out an annual subscription of $99.99 to hear and watch his antics via his website and app.
Kyle Sandilands will launch his new show on August 10.Sitthixay Ditthavong
The individual subscription fee is a long way from the $10 million a year that was drip feeding into the former KIIS FM radio king’s account thanks to his last contract with ARN, which, as we well know, was dramatically torn up in March.
After a flurry of federal court legal action, Sandilands and ARN settled their differences, with the former host of the Kyle & Jackie O Show walking away with a $12 million payout, a far cry from the $85 million he had originally asked for.
The new era of Sandilands is expected to launch on August 10, when the first episode of Kyle Sandilands Live will lurch into life.
Just how many people will pay up is the million-dollar question.
Ross Stevenson’s love letter to footy
The revival of the fast-fading art of letter writing is being championed by an unlikely candidate – Melbourne radio king Ross Stevenson.
Stevenson has been busy leading the charge to reinvigorate the pen-to-paper pastime via his annual Love Letter To Football lunch.
Stevenson, who with his 3AW co-host Russel Howcroft has long dominated the breakfast airwaves, is the founder and convener of the annual event that supports the Australian Prostate Centre. He invites five speakers each year to tell of their love of the great game – the catch being they must craft a nine-minute personal letter that they read to the room.
Ross Stevenson (right) and Russel Howcroft at Stevenson’s Love Letter to Football thank you lunch at Bistro Thierry Sam D’Agostino/SDPMediaImage
This year’s event on August 6 at Marvel Stadium will mark the 10th edition of the fundraiser. Stevenson hosted a gathering at Bistro Thierry in Toorak on Thursday to thank previous letter writers.
Gold Logie nominee Sam Pang was spotted chatting separately with AFL boss Andrew Dillon and former chief Gillon McLachlan, who looked tanned and relaxed. CBD could not help but wonder if Pang was picking up ideas for his character, a put-upon chief executive of an AFL expansion team in Tasmania in the ABC mockumentary series Ground Up.
Andrew Dillon with Sam Pang and Gillon McLachlan.Sam D’Agostino/SDPMediaImage
Among the guests were Victoria Racing Club chief executive Kylie Rogers, former governor of Victoria Linda Dessau, veteran sports commentator Sandy Roberts, TV power couple Rob Sitch and Jane Kennedy, and former Australian Grand Prix chief executive Andrew Westacott. Also present were businessman Bill Guest, comedian Anthony Lehmann, Channel Nine’s Alicia Loxley and Jo Hall, footy media identity Tim Lane and Mark Harrison, chief executive of the Australian Prostate Centre.
Turns out Stevenson has an almost foolproof way of getting people to say yes to penning their personal insights.
“Write a letter, win a flag,” he told CBD.
“I wrote my letter in 2013 – Hawthorn won the flag in 2013.” It has happened regularly since.
Rebekah Giles to host friends and clients to celebrate nuptials in Italy
Last month, the high-profile defamation solicitor Rebekah Giles and her property developer husband, Tim Price, drew a swarm of the most influential names from the nation’s legal, political and media circles for their Sydney Opera House wedding. But it would seem the celebrations didn’t end there.
This week, CBD hears Giles and an assortment of friends and clients are set to take the wedding celebrations to Italy. Word in Sydney media circles is that the solicitor’s long-time friend and high-profile barrister Sue Chrysanthou, SC, will be among the guests travelling to Italy for the knees-up near Tyrol later this week.
High-profile solicitor Rebekah Giles tied the knot with the Melbourne property developer Tim Price last month.Instagram accounts
Also expected to make the trip are a couple of Giles’ clients, including none other than Cate Sayers, who this masthead reported this week has just finalised her divorce from Luke Sayers.
No doubt we’ll hear more about the travelling party in the coming days. Many of the names, we’d expect, would also have attended Giles and Price’s wedding.
Among them were a contingent of media personalities, including Karl Stefanovic and his wife, Jasmine, as well as Sky News Australia host Sharri Markson, and the Seven Network’s morning TV boss, Sarah Stinson.
Also: a gaggle of legal heavyweights, including Arthur Moses, SC, and his partner and former NSW premier Gladys Berejiklian, and Chrysanthou. Also there was Noel Hutley, SC, the barrister who represented Gina Rinehart in a bitter legal fight involving her children, and counsel to Rinehart’s eldest children, Christopher Withers, SC.
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Fiona Byrne is the CBD columnist for The Age and The Sydney Morning Herald.Connect via email.
John Buckley is a CBD columnist for The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age.Connect via email.From our partners