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Brothel Has Big Day On
Oz Stock Exchange

By Jeff Turnbull
AAP Commentary
5-1-3


Australia's first brothel float has gone off with a bang, with a little help from an infamous Hollywood madam.
 
The Daily Planet Ltd's shares proved to be a real turn on for investors and stags, eager to get their hands on a stake in the Melbourne brothel which hopes to soon be sponsoring an AFL team.
 
With madam Heidi Fleiss watching in Melbourne, The Daily Planet shares hit the Australian Stock Exchange boards at 70 cents - well above their 50 cent issue price.
 
From there the price inflated, ending its first day at $1.09.
 
The company's chief executive, Andrew Harris, was delighting in the fact that the large broking houses, which had snubbed the bordello in the lead-up to the listing, jumped in for their piece of the action today.
 
He said the credibility of The Daily Planet, which boasts being the first brothel in the world to list on a stock exchange, had changed completely.
 
"We have gone from 100 knockers to no knockers," he said.
 
"We are a genuine public company with high drive and high interest and I've committed myself to the next five years to make sure we create the biggest sex company in the world.
 
"To all the cynics - we are here, we have made it."
 
With its float now behind it, The Daily Planet has set its sights on sponsoring an AFL team, after an unsuccessful attempt 20 years ago to back now-defunct club Fitzroy.
 
There are plenty of links with the AFL - Mr Harris is the son of former long-serving Carlton president George Harris while fellow director Shane Maguire is on the AFL Tribunal.
 
"Where in the past everybody has snubbed sponsorship from us, we would love to look at an AFL side," Mr Harris said.
 
Ex-Hollywood madam, and Daily Planet consultant, Ms Fleiss helped turn the listing into a media circus just by her flamboyant presence.
 
Having finally made it on to the ASX, nine years after the idea of a float was first mooted, The Daily Planet is looking at expanding into Perth, Brisbane and Sydney's western suburbs.
 
It may also open a second venue in Melbourne, where its core asset, its namesake The Daily Planet, has an annual turnover of between $6-9 million.
 
Of that amount, Mr Harris said, the company receives $3 million in room booking fees.
 
"We do not take one cent from our working girls," he said.
 
"They are independent contractors and cannot discount their services to (shareholders) because we don't control the money."
 
Mr Harris said The Daily Planet's future lay in Sydney, where it intends setting up a one-stop adult venue that will include a brothel, adult cinema, adult sex shops - what he described as a "sex Disneyland".
 
"The (Prostitute Control Act) in Victoria is so draconian we would never do anything else in the sex industry here," he said.
 
Although the float raised $3.75 million, less than its $8.9 million original prospectus target, Mr Harris still has big plans the grow The Daily Planet into a company with a $500 million market capitalisation.
 
http://www.news.com.au/common/story_page/0,4057,6366651%255E1702,00.html

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