Annette Sharp: Francesca Barham-Packer sails off with Robert Bates
Heiress Francesca Barham-Packer has inherited her love of bohemian entrepreneurs from mother Gretel, spending summer in Europe with her ‘wellness guru’ boyfriend, writes Annette Sharp.
NSW
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She may have inherited her love of travel, fine living and European summers from her father Nick Barham and uncle James Packer, but heiress Francesca Barham-Packer without question inherited her love of bohemian entrepreneurs from mother Gretel.
Barham-Packer was, at the time this article was filed, sailing into port in Corfu, Greece, on her mother’s icebreaker, the Arctic P, having departed the southern Italian port of Napoli two days prior.
The long northern summer stretches out before Packer-Barham and she won’t want for company during it.
At her side, enjoying all the comforts on offer on the luxuriously appointed vessel formerly owned by Kerry Packer, is her boyfriend of 18 months, Robert Bates, a man who also has a taste for the finer things in life, among them the 29-year-old heiress.
Fortysomething divorcee Bates is the “wellness guru” behind controversial failed start-ups Aquamamma, a pregnancy water, mental health supplement Aurum+ and air pollution skin supplement HR Health.
In 2023 the finance papers reported that Cranbrook alumni Bates, who had landed on the AFR rich list in 2021 with his then-partner Emma Gibson and an estimated fortune worth $145m, was being pursued by six creditors who had accused him of fraud and wanted their money back.
The matter is currently before the NSW Supreme Court, with one of the largest sums, $US1.23m, allegedly owed to one investor, Andrew Cummins.
Divorcee Bates — who has also been pursued by staff chasing their superannuation and salaries, a Los Angeles court-appointed private investigator trying to serve a claim for $1m in unpaid bills, and customers searching for their products and demanding refunds — has rather an impressive trail of creditors.
In court filings in February, Bates confirmed his investors had not received payments, however he maintained he never committed to a timeline to repay them.
Just what Bates is worth today remains unknown, however six months ago he was struggling to raise $300,000 for an unpaid tax bill.
According to a recent report, Bates was set to fly out of the country to London with Packer-Barham at Christmas when Australian customs stepped in and stopped him before he could board the couple’s flight.
It turned out the tax commissioner had placed a restriction on Bates’ passport over the unpaid tax debt.
Fortunately his fabulously wealthy girlfriend could afford to pay the $300,000 and Bates was soon on his way to her side.
There seemed to have been no such issue weeks earlier when Bates had joined Barham Packer’s billionairess mother, Gretel, in Bali for some Island of the Gods R’n’R at a health retreat.
Gretel has long had a soft spot for alternative therapy types with overtly masculine auras who hail from Avalon.
Her second husband and father of her third child, William, was astrologer and guru Shane Murray, as longtime readers may recall.
The couple met in a Avalon cafe.
That relationship lasted six years, until 2006.
If she’s had another relationship in the intervening 18 years, she’s kept it to herself.
Do you know more? Email annette.sharp@dailytelegraph.com.au
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