Business Partnerships – Different to band partnerships!

(Pic credit Photo by Cytonn Photography on Unsplash)

The chaos around the new Payday Superannuation rules, which threw a wall up around smaller band gigs on July 1, caused a lot of music acts – bands and duos – to restructure as partnerships to get around venues having to pay super directly into performers’ accounts.

That imbroglio is mostly correctly described at www.entertainoz.com.au/super-guarantee-performers, where it all gets really complex.

Thank goodness this article isn’t about unscrambling that omelette.

We’re talking about business partnerships here. The sometimes brilliant ‘sum of the parts is greater than the whole’ arrangement, where like-minded people work towards a common goal for the collective good.

And where some end up in the Supreme Court. Just like Karl Stefanovic versus Keshnee Kemp Ibrahim and their podcast.

The pair co-owned 123 Podcast Pty Ltd, each holding a 45% stake, with accountant Anthony Bell holding the remaining 10%. The company was set up to produce The Karl Stefanovic Show.

This business was created just this year and caught my eye because of the strangely minor shareholding of the star performer. How did a friend of his wife snag the same shareholding, I wondered?

She had invested $120,000 to get it on air, it transpired. Karl just swanned in and started to blather.

Their working relationship quickly collapsed in August 2026, shortly after Stefanovic was sacked from the Nine Network’s Today. Stefanovic blamed Ibrahim for the network fallout.

Ibrahim then accused Stefanovic of acting in an ‘oppressive’ and ‘unfairly discriminatory’ manner in trying to oust her from the company. She filed an urgent injunction in the NSW Supreme Court to block her removal, and a forensic expert was appointed to value the business ahead of a scheduled hearing.

Then, in October, Stefanovic purchased her 45% stake in what was rumoured to be a seven-figure deal, giving him control of the company.

Two potential resolution paths emerged. A buyout, where one partner purchases the other’s shares at an agreed or independently assessed value. Or liquidation, where the company is wound up, its assets sold and the business effectively destroyed.

Funny enough, that’s almost exactly the predicament Kate and Julius Pty Ltd faced when our equal partners in Sectech Roadshow Pty Ltd decided they could no longer work with us in 2023.

They drafted a Supreme Court application to liquidate the company.

This was in preference to buying us out, something we’d been negotiating for some time. The business was profitable, with both sides having enjoyed earnings from eight years of events, albeit with growing tensions around management styles.

Our protagonists had an advantage. One of them had a semi-retired corporate lawyer as a de facto partner.

The guy is incredibly smart, and he engineered the liquidation route as a high-stakes way to either get us out or force us to take a haircut on a sale.

They reasoned they controlled the customer relationships – the exhibitors were also advertisers in their security trade magazine – so perhaps they could resurrect the business if it came to that.

Rather than front up to the Supreme Court with a $20,000 barrister in tow, we agreed to appoint a liquidator.

He promptly made a ‘one offer’ demand to each side. We had a week to put a number on the table. We did. Their number was higher. They won.

The liquidator halved the winning offer, reflecting our 50% shareholding, deducted his eye-watering fees and mailed us a cheque for 23 grand.

The other guys took over the event and now bank all the profits.

That’s business.

The upside is we no longer have to deal with people we didn’t enjoy working with.

The lessons are many.

It’s one thing partnering with people, but you need to look a little beyond them to see what firepower they have in reserve. A resident head-kicking corporate lawyer, for example, can be a formidable advantage when things turn nasty.

Our 23 grand was expended on our own lawyer, a necessity when dealing with a liquidator. We came away with just enough left over to buy one drink at happy hour.

Our shareholders’ agreement didn’t adequately deal with an exit option. In hindsight, that omission was waved through by the other side, perhaps with one eye on eventually shafting us.

The lesson? Define how the partnership ends before you begin it.

When everyone is getting along, nobody wants to contemplate a messy divorce. But that’s precisely when you need to agree on the terms.

Because when the relationship breaks down, the lawyers will be the only people guaranteed to make money.