Ardent's chairman is having one last throw of the dice from the big chair – announcing plans to change the company's name to Main Event Entertainment Ltd "to better reflect the group's focus on entertainment and the fast growing Main Event Entertainment business in the United States", said the company via its AGM notice.

What a pity the company did not choose to name itself after after its Gold Coast theme park, Dreamworld – or one of its attractions like ScreamWorld.

The resolution to change the company name could be a good test of how well Balnaves has mended fences with his major shareholders after labelling them naive, illogical and vicious earlier this year.

This was after its shares plunged following a board decision to dump CEO Greg Shaw in favour of board member and veteran publisher, Deborah Thomas.

"There needs to be more respect for what a board does, rather than this suggestion it was a crazy decision made after a long lunch," he said at the time.

It just so happens that Ardent needs 75 per cent of votes to approve the name change at the October 27 meeting, so let's hope these disrespectful investors have learnt their lesson.  

Bank pay doesn't stack up

CBD spent the weekend digesting the extraordinary public debut of our new  Reserve Bank Governor, Philip Lowe. He proved to be extraordinarily frank about what he thought of  the bonus-fed culture of our banking sector last week.

The "poor outcomes", he said, largely come down to "incentives within the organisations and that's largely remuneration structures. And that's a responsibility of management".

It brought your columnist back to a question raised by the departure of Glenn Stevens earlier this month.

How much were we paying for a world-class Reserve Bank boss compared to what the private sector considers fair pay for their top talent?

Is it a fair comparison? It is, if the pay gap is driving "poor outcomes" that potentially affect all Australians.

The latest RBA report states the Stevens picked up $1.01 million for 2015.

Let's put aside the $12.3 million worth of remuneration handed out to Commonwealth Bank boss, Ian Narev, last year. His pay is unremarkable compared to the big packets handed out over the last decade to ANZ's Mike Smith, and Westpac's Gail Kelly.

What is really worth noting is that Stevens' pay would not have been worthy of inclusion in any of the recent annual reports of the Big Four banks.

In simple terms, his pay would not have got him a place among the 45 executives whose pay needed to be disclosed in these reports.

In truth, he wouldn't make the top 50. CBA only had one executive on the list with remuneration below $2 million after the bumper year it just experienced.

And even Andrew Thorburn's NAB team bottomed out at $1.93 million in its most recent report.

That's a lot of money being thrown at Lowe's "poor outcomes".

To be fair, you don't need to go to the banks to find high pay packets, of course. Our highly regarded RBA Governor was not even the most highly paid public servant.

The surprise for many readers would be that Australia Post boss, Ahmed Fahour – the man whose base pay is $2.1 million, and received a $4.8 million pay packet in 2013 – no longer claims this title.

According to reports, he was pipped by NBN boss Bill Morrow, who took home $3.6 million in wages and bonuses last year.

The expectations of our national broadband network may have been lowered, but the pay has not reflected this – as shown by the remuneration of Morrow's top deputies.

The NBN's finance chief, Stephen Rue, took home $1.4 million. And Malcolm Turnbull's mate – NBN network operations boss JB Rousselet – earned $1.2 million.

Gold Dust

There has never been a more lucrative time to be the chief executive of the asbestos-tainted group, James Hardie.

Louis Gries offloaded roughly $12 million worth of stock that vested last week – barely a month after a sizeable protest vote at the James Hardies AGM against his $11 million pay packet last year.

He cashed in $2.9 million worth of stock in March – which means he has cashed in around $38 million worth of shares in less than three years.

Got a tip? ckruger@fairfaxmedia.com.au