text: The world’s slowest moving “simplification” crusade, the brainchild of BHP chief Andrew Mackenzie, has finally made it to the Big Australian’s headquarters.
  It’s only taken four years.
  The cost-cutting really kicked off in 2016, however, after the South32 spin-off, it’s already resulted in the departure of iron ore executive Jimmy Wilson and petroleum president Tim Cutt from the outfit.
  Now those sharp-suited corporate affairs types are in the firing line. And what have the geniuses over in the Collins Street, Melbourne HQ decided to call this slice-and-dice activity?
  World Class Functions.
  We suspect the only class of functions for the poor foot soldiers ferreting away in human resources and IT as they consider their fate are of the bodily variety.
  BHP chief executive Andrew Mackenzie. Credit:David Mariuz
  We’re told each division has a different timeline, with some stretching out for more than two years, to “simplify”.
  How many employees will have to pack up their desks — a single photo frame of A5 size and perhaps some gum, throat lozenges and lollies but certainly no chocolate, fruit, nuts and “other nibble food” — we do not know.
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  Mackenzie has managed to acquire a dazzling array of corporate affairs operatives.
  Former Labor national secretary George Wright calls the miner home, as do former Jeff Kennett advisors (when he was Victorian premier) Tony Cudmore and Jon Richards, along with a newer recruit from Labor leader Bill Shorten’s office, former press secretary Sam Casey.
  Single malt's on him
  Goldman Sachs banking head Christian Johnson stands to make a small fortune from advising Long-Term Asset Partners on its takeover bid for GrainCorp. Credit:Nigel Lotz
  Can a grain silo be used to store cash? Asking for a friend.
  Goldman Sachs investment banking boss Christian Johnston is no stranger to making a motza from acquisitions but we predict his work on Tony Shepherd’s Long-Term Asset Partners’ takeover bid for GrainCorp might be one seriously indecent shower of notes.
  Much has been made about Johnston’s closer association with defending takeover targets, rather than engineering rather exotic takeovers like this $3.3 billion deal, which could be underwritten by Allianz and funded almost entirely with debt.
  Goldies and their mates at Gresham Partners took as much as $45 million for their work defending Fosters Group against a SABMiller takeover in 2011, and Johnston has had his hands busy similarly backing in Asciano in its brutal sale to Qube and Brookfield Infrastructure.
  (That’s not to mention assisting BHP ward off Paul Singer’s activist Elliott Management fund, and advising the miner on an unsuccessful merger with Rio Tinto.)
  Now Goldies is due a generous fee for advising Shepherd and his team, and another pound of cash for lining up the very secret financing on the deal.
  What a shame for Johnston, then, that the transaction won’t make the cut for bonus season.
  Still, a good start to the ledger next year.
  Jobs for the... First Lady
  Muriel Demarcus, First Lady of Rio Tinto, has a new job with Sydney Metro.
  On the subject of mining, the First Lady (her words) of Rio Tinto, Jean-Sébastien Jacques' wife Muriel Demarcus, has a new job!
  (“My application for a gold digger free pass must have been lost in the post, so as a consolation prize I instantly became a First Lady,” she writes on her blog.)
  She’s joined Transport Minister Andrew Constance’s not-yet-bungled Sydney Metro.
  Meanwhile, former climate and energy advisor in the Prime Minister’s Office under Malcolm Turnbull, Sid Marris, is heading back to the Minerals Council where he worked from 2008 until early last year (and before that, as Canberra bureau chief on The Australian newspaper).
  There are also changes ahead for the Institute of Public Affairs, with the think tank’s (former) policy director Simon Breheny rounding off his first month outside the Liberal Party pre-school at tobacco giant Philip Morris.
  Officially, he's a public policy manager, but his Facebook tells us he'll be in charge of bringing "about a cultural and social change that will encourage smokers to embrace the future and make the switch away from a 19th century product”.
  But CBD’s inaugural Mike Munro Where Are They Now award for career transitions goes to Victoria Police’s former top homicide detective Charlie Bezzina, who’s cropped up working as a contracted private investigator for the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Melbourne.
  A source inside the church tells us Melbourne’s chattiest cop has been engaged on an “ad hoc basis as part of this system to undertake investigations.”
  Are you scratching your head? So are we.
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  CBD
  BHP Group
  Rio Tinto
  Investment banking
  Graincorp
  Kylar Loussikian is The Sydney Morning Herald's CBD columnist.Connect via email.
  Samantha Hutchinson is a CBD columnist for The Age and The Sydney Morning Herald. She recently covered Victorian and NSW politics and business for News Corp, and previously worked for the Australian Financial Review.Connect via Twitter or email.