His wealth management outfit, Yellow Brick Road, has announced a restructure, following a string of acquisitions, that will leave some of its highly paid executives at head office without a job.

"Consolidation is about creating new efficiencies and reducing costs and all of us working harder to achieve the targets," Bouris,  the founder and executive chairman of the group, said in the company's announcement to the ASX.

YBR said the corporate restructure involves the removal of a number of management level roles across the company in lending, wealth, and marketing "that are no longer required due to the fulfilment of projects and integration of acquired businesses. This will result in a decrease of direct staffing costs."

YBR told CBD five senior positions will go, saving the company about $1.5 million a year as it transitions from a licensee to a franchisee model to make the business more "responsive" and "commercial".



Other savings would be made from lower advertising costs, now that the company has "developed a great brand", claimed Bouris.

Developing the brand has not been a cheap exercise.

YBR said it has spent $20 million during the past three years building its YBR brand "to position itself for growth".

A substantial portion of this money was devoted to Nine's Celebrity Apprentice.

Bouris said he will be leading from the front as the remaining staff are asked to carry a heavier load.

"In line with the reduction of a number of high-cost senior management roles and other various management layers in the whole group, I have asked the remaining senior managers to adopt what I call a 'step-in' mindset so they will be stepping into the roles that have been eliminated and this will be done starting with me as executive chairman," he said.

Bouris has to do a lot more than "step in", though.

YBR's share price has gone from 70¢ to 19¢ in less than two years, which gives the company a market value of about $52 million.

Given Bouris took home $5.67 million in remuneration last year, it makes you wonder if YBR investors are tempted to deliver those two famous words to their executive chairman at this year's AGM.  

Travel buddies

Qantas and Australia's national tourism body have finally kissed and made up after an ugly brawl tore apart their long-standing relationship in 2012.

Qantas and TA signed a $20 million, three-year tourism campaign on Wednesday, the first since Qantas boss Alan Joyce tore up the previous agreement over a conflict with TA chairman Geoff Dixon – who was previously his mentor at Qantas.

"Both Qantas and Tourism Australia want the same thing – a strong tourism industry that makes Australia the first choice for people all over the world. With tourism both to and within Australia on the rise, it's the ideal time for us to join forces once again," said Joyce in a prepared statement.

The close relationship ended abruptly in 2012 when Dixon joined a group of renegade Qantas investors agitating for change at the airline – directly challenging the authority of Joyce.

The group included high-profile businessmen such as ad man John Singleton and financier Mark Carnegie, but it was the involvement of Dixon that made it particularly personal for Joyce. Dixon played a key role in Joyce's ascension to the top job at Qantas over John Borghetti and Peter Gregg.

It was a particularly vulnerable time for Qantas, and its chief executive, with the airline's share price languishing at record lows.

"No doubt your teams will have questions and concerns as these rumours escalate. I ask for your support reassuring them that our strategy is the right one," Joyce said in an email to his senior managers at the the height of the conflict.

In a bid to flush out the rebel group, Joyce severed all of Qantas' financial ties with Australia's peak tourism body.

The rebels sold their shares in the airline in 2013 but Joyce still demanded the resignation of Dixon from the tourism body – a demand that was rejected by its board. 

The stand-off continued, despite Dixon retiring from TA in July last year.

A year on, Qantas has finally buried the hatchet.

"When you consider the nature of our respective businesses, this is a deal which just makes sense – for Tourism Australia, for Qantas and, most of all, for Australian inbound tourism," said TA boss John O'Sullivan.

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