The billionaire’s corporate fixer and media executive is leaving the group. A sometimes divisive figure, he has advised the country’s most influential moguls.
Already a subscriber?Bruce McWilliam’s portrait in Sydney power diner Machiavelli is hung between billionaire Kerry Stokes, his son Ryan Stokes, formerOther powerful people who leave their jobs – former NSW premier Gladys Berejiklian, for example – have their portrait taken down and replaced. Not McWilliam. “He’s one of our best customers,” one of the staff says. “Always polite, always friendly, always coming in after doing a big deal.
With a legendary penchant for aggressive and relentless late-night emailing and texting, McWilliam also amassed a property portfolio of unknown scale. “The real estate market would collapse without him,” veteran television producer Peter Meakin says. “Bruce McWilliam is without doubt the best commercial lawyer I have ever worked with,” Turnbull says. “He has all the chops a great lawyer needs. He is charming and persuasive, he is a very keen black letter lawyer with an intellect the best of bench or bar, and he is practical and imaginative.
In more recent years, McWilliam has been a key player behind the scenes in Stokes’ backing of disgraced former soldier Ben Roberts-Smith, who suedover articles in 2018 written by Nick McKenzie, Chris Masters and David Wroe. The articles alleged that he committed murder during deployments to Afghanistan. He denied the allegations.
On the other side of several battles was Jeff Browne, Collingwood president and former managing director of the Nine Network. “I ran into Bruce many times. He was a fierce opponent, a very formidable advocate for his cause. But I do like to recall on every occasion we locked horns, we did a deal,” Browne says. “He was tough but ultimately able to see his way through an often complex negotiation to land on an outcome for both parties.
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