Nine crisis: James Packer says Peter Costello ‘hasn’t been good for shareholders’

Following a torrid fortnight at Nine, James Packer – whose family history will forever be linked to the media giant – has taken a swipe at chairman Peter Costello.

Billionaire James Packer, whose family history will forever be linked to the Nine Network, has taken a swipe at the company’s long-serving chairman, Peter Costello, accusing the former federal treasurer of failing the media giant’s shareholders.

Mr Packer, who inherited Nine from his father, Kerry Packer, in 2005 before cutting all ties with the company in 2012 – and making a significant profit in the process – says Mr Costello’s eight-year tenure as the media organisation’s chair “hasn’t been good” for the ­investors.

“I think being chairman of Nine is all he (Mr Costello) has left and he will try and keep the job for as long as he can,” Mr Packer told The Australian at the weekend.

“His time as chair hasn’t been good for shareholders.”

Nine Entertainment chairman Peter Costello has been criticised by James Packer.

Nine’s shares were trading at $1.49 when Mr Costello became chairman in early 2016; on Friday, the company’s share price closed at $1.40, its lowest point in almost four years.

While Mr Packer was highly critical of Mr Costello’s chairmanship, he was more generous towards Nine’s chief executive Mike Sneesby.

“I don’t know him well, but I like Mike Sneesby,” Mr Packer, 56, told The Australian.

His comments follow a torrid fortnight for Nine, with the company forced to establish a wide-ranging internal review amid the emergence of a raft of allegations pertaining to the mistreatment of female staff by former news boss Darren Wick.

James Packer said of Peter Costello: ‘His time as chair hasn’t been good for shareholders’. Picture: Getty

The share price has fallen more than 10 per cent in the fortnight since the serious allegations emerged.

On May 20, The Australian revealed 60-year-old Wick, the long-serving boss of the company’s news and current affairs division, left the company in March amid serious allegations of inappropriate conduct towards a much younger female journalist.

Following that revelation, more than a dozen women came forward to The Australian and to other media outlets, most notably Sky News Australia, to allege they, too, had been harassed and bullied by Wick, with several claiming Nine management turned a blind eye to the veteran newsman’s inappropriate behaviour.

Both Mr Costello and Mr Sneesby have been under intense pressure over the past two weeks, with strong speculation that both men’s jobs were on the line as the company was besieged by media reports about the alleged “toxic culture” within its walls.

Nine’s own publishing division – after avoiding the issue for several days after the allegations against Wick first emerged – began to openly speculate last week about the possibility Mr Sneesby might lose his job.

The pair fronted an emergency board meeting last Thursday (Mr Costello reportedly dialled in from Melbourne), and afterwards they co-signed a staff-wide email, offering the frank admission that the company “needs to do more” with regards to its “failings with integrity”.

“At Nine we do work that has an important value to the community,” the email read.

“In order to continue to do this, it is critical we face up to any failings with integrity and create a workplace that is respectful and positive for all.

“We recognise we need to do more.”

Mr Costello has served on the Nine board for more than 11 years, and was appointed chairman eight years ago.

In 2022, The Australian published a series of emails that Mr Packer had sent to Mr Costello, following a falling-out between the pair earlier that same year.

In one email, Mr Packer accused Mr Costello of hypocrisy and deceiving the Nine board, about his time as a “secret Crown lobbyist” in 2011.

“Your job was to get me closer to (then gaming minister) Michael O’Brien,” Mr Packer wrote to Mr Costello in July 2022, adding he paid the Future Fund chairman $300,000 “to lobby for me, for Crown”.

Following the release of the emails, The Australian confirmed Mr Costello was not the registered lobbyist for Crown or Mr Packer’s private vehicle, Consolidated Press Holdings, although he was an adviser to CPH in 2011, the same year that Mr Packer ­alleged Mr Costello worked as a “secret Crown lobbyist”. Mr Costello declined to respond to messages from The Australian on Sunday.

As for Mr Packer, he told The Australian he has no feelings of “personal sadness” about the turmoil that Nine – the media conglomerate his family controlled for decades – currently finds itself in.

“I have no regrets being out of Nine, nor personal sadness,” he said.

“Nine is totally in the past for me.”