CBA and News Corp close ranks around new friends Matt Comyn and Laura Jayes

Corporate communications often comes down to the art of semantics. Nowhere is that semantic precision more critical than at the market’s biggest companies, where an errant word can move a share price.

So the fact Commonwealth Bank chief executive Matt Comyn’s media offsider refused to deny that he has a personal relationship with the high-profile News24 broadcaster Laura Jayes on Thursday piqued our interest.

The relationship, which we don’t yet know how to characterise, was first reported by The Australian Financial Review on Wednesday night, just a day after CBD revealed Comyn has been separated from his wife for “some time”. The bank said the couple were working through the terms privately.

The Financial Review reported the pair had been seen around Bondi and had gone on holiday together. It immediately lit up group chats in business and media circles, and landed as the Commonwealth Bank boss sat with journalists for the bank’s annual media dinner.

But when we put Comyn’s relationship with Jayes to the bank’s flack on Thursday morning, it was crickets until the afternoon. Then a simple no comment.

The silence over at News Corp Australia also raised our eyebrows. The Murdoch-controlled media giant owns News24, formerly Sky News Australia, where Jayes hosts the network’s morning political program, AM Agenda.

A handful of the company’s leadership team didn’t know anything about Jayes’ ties to Comyn beyond what they had read the night before, we’re told. But even then, they weren’t surprised to learn the pair could be Sydney’s newest power couple – or power friends.

Our luck, however, ended there. Spokespeople for News Corp Australia and News24 didn’t even pick up the phone.

Questions about the nature of the friendship and whether it had been disclosed to the News24 and News Corp hierarchies, meanwhile, went through to the keeper.

But something tells us it won’t be long before we learn more. There are already questions simmering in media circles about how Jayes will manage even only the perception of a conflict of interest, to the extent she needs to cover the bank or its engagement with the Albanese government in her day job. Investors, meanwhile, tend to be alert when a chief executive is going through a divorce.

Still, the pair could well be Sydney’s most eligible bachelor and bachelorette. So, if it turns out they are in a relationship, good luck to them.

Shutting down social media easier said than done for Swans

The Sydney Swans’ Melbourne hotel nightmare has shown, if anyone needed reminding, just how hard it is to shut down a scandal and reel in online content in the social media age.

With five Swans players – Riley Bice, Nick Blakey, Isaac Heeney, James Jordon and Chad Warner – stood down for the rest of the season by the club after partying into the early hours on Monday and inviting at least two women to the team hotel in Melbourne, and Victoria Police investigating an alleged sexual assault by Heeney during that gathering at the Pullman Hotel, social media is being combed for any and all information about all the participants.

Every aspect of their lives, their partners’ lives, and their corporate and business relationships are being raked over. Any pieces of content, no matter how lighthearted are being put under the microscope.

Take, for example, footage of Swans vice captain Heeney having a hit of cricket in the nets at the MCG on Sunday, just hours before the now-notorious hotel party.

That reel, which is on the Swans’ Instagram and has been viewed more than 1.2 million times, has the now awkward choice of the Sherbet song Howzat! as its soundtrack – sample lyric: “How, how, howzat! You messed about, I caught you out. Howzat!”

As one comment on the post read: “This aged well.”

Then there is the link on the Swans’ website to a video promoting the partnership between the club and Transport NSW encouraging people not to use their mobile phones when driving.

Heeney is featured on the video’s thumbnail under the headline “Get your hand off it.”

A photo of Heeney and his fiancee, Steffie Waters, wearing unfortunate Christmas jumpers from his Instagram has been widely circulated.

And comments on a reel of him pumping up the release of his Little Isaac children’s books has been turned off and promotion by the publisher paused.

Comments have been switched off the players’ social media and their partners have either put their social media on private or turned off the comments.

But that certainly is not stopping people from commenting elsewhere, and there is plenty of content to comment on.

New tennis boss Abdo’s hand-shaking tour begins

Melbourne’s inner circle of powerbrokers and decision-makers will intersect on Friday at the annual Million Dollar Lunch, one of the key business-led fundraising events on the city’s calendar.

Stepping into the deep end of Melbourne’s social networking scene will be the newly installed chief executive of Tennis Australia, Andrew Abdo, the former chief executive of the NRL.

As a new face in town, having recently assumed the role as tennis boss following Craig Tiley’s move to Florida to head up the United States Tennis Association, we’re tipping plenty of guests will be making a beeline for him. His hand-shaking tour of Melbourne begins now.

CBD has been reliably informed that RSVPs for the event at Crown have been received from the likes of VRC chair Neil Wilson and chief executive Kylie Rogers, Australian Grand Prix Corporation chair Martin Pakula and chief executive Travis Auld, Crown Resorts executives David Tsai and Ed Domingo, and Victorian Chamber of Commerce and Industry boss Sally Curtain. Invitations have also gone out to Racing Victoria chief executive Aaron Morrison, Mitchelton Group chief Andy Ryan, Melbourne Storm chief executive Justin Rodski, Logie winner Todd Woodbridge, cricketing great Ricky Ponting, property developer Renato Pellicano and Zagame Group’s Bobby Zagame.

The event, which is now in its 21st year and raises funds for the Children’s Cancer Foundation, will be in good hands with Hamish McLachlan on MC duties.

It goes unspoken that it is one of those rooms that you want to be seen in. Trust us, everyone is noting who is there and, more importantly, who isn’t.

No Skeletons in Victoria as Hollywood leaves town

Early last month, CBD brought news that Academy Award-winning American actor Brie Larson, best known for playing Captain Marvel in the feature film universe built around the Marvel Comics characters, was heading to Melbourne to work on a new horror film.

Well, the Victorian government has finally confirmed that Larson has been in town working on the international production titled Skeletons, which was shot in the old Neighbours studios at Nunawading. Other filming locations included the Yarra Valley, the Dandenong Ranges, the Mornington Peninsula and Werribee.

In an odd twist, confirmation of the movie, which the government claims created about 635 jobs and injected more than $21.5 million into Victoria’s economy, has come after the production finished filming. Leading lady Larson having departed Melbourne several weeks ago after wrapping her scenes.

Normally, the announcement of a film receiving that has state government support comes early in the production, not once the movie is in the can.

The weird timing, CBD understands, was caused when the planned bells and whistles about the production arriving in Melbourne had to be rescheduled due to drama in government ranks when Jacinta Allan stepped down as premier and Ben Carroll took over.

It is all a bit unfortunate as it has meant the conversation about Hollywood coming to town is taking place after the actual Hollywood star is long gone.