James Packer’s more than 100 roles as a director chart a course of great success, and great failure

What is White Whale Pty Ltd? Just one of more than 110 companies where James Packer has served as a director over the past 35 years.

James Packer in happier times, pictured with Lawrence Ho - son of Macau gaming tycoon Stanley Ho - and Mr Ho’s wife Sharen at the grand opening of the City of Dreams mega-casino in Manila in 2015.

The list of James Packer’s former directorships, and the addresses associated with them, tell the story of a life lived at the top level of the business world, rarely far from the headlines, characterised by great successes and great losses, and which has touched on the lives of all ordinary Australians.

And perhaps surprisingly, even astonishingly, after a corporate history stretching back to his appointment as a director of Fapomo Pty Ltd (also previously known as James Packer Investments) back on 19 December, 1986, aged just 19, Mr Packer currently is not a director of a single Australian-based entity, according to records sourced from the corporate regulator.

The company names in the Packer repertoire range from the storeyed - think Consolidated Media Holdings, Nine Entertainment Co, The Bulletin Newspaper Co - to the notorious in One.Tel - one of Mr Packer’s significant missteps early on.

There have been some great successes also, with Seek Limited and Carsales.com, where he served on the boards for about six years and two years respectively, generating huge returns for Mr Packer himself or his controlled entities, as he correctly forecast that the surge of classified advertising from traditional media to online was a structural shift in the economy.

Many of the company names are mundane, but scratch the surface and other names emerge, property developer Theo Onisforou (still a director and shareholder of Mistysurf Pty Ltd), Consolidated Press Holdings chief financial officer Aldo Matrone, who is a director of Teraleaf - which Packer owns while no longer being a director - and long term adviser Michael Johnston who is a director of Ancarac, owned by fellow Packer company Calatine.

Property developer Theo Onisforou co-owns three companies with James Packer.

Other company names are delightfully odd - N Beauty and the Beast, or the wonderfully named White Whale Pty, which has a list of former directors including Hugh Marks, who stepped off in March this year, David Gyngell, Packer lieutenant Guy Jalland, Nick Falloon and tech and media executive Daniel Petre.

Former Crown Resorts non-executive directors Michael Johnston, Harold Mitchell and Guy Jalland arriving for the company’s 2019 annual general meeting.

The genesis of that company on April 21 1997, when Kerry Packer was still at the helm of Publishing and Broadcasting Ltd (PBL), must surely tell a tale, but as far as the public record goes, Ishmael himself would be hard-pressed to find too much out.

The company remains a wholly owned subsidiary of Nine, and Hansard from a 2003 sitting of the senate lists Senator Len Harris from Queensland name-checking the company while detailing the interrelationships of Australian media players.

“If we start by looking at PBL and its associations, we see that PBL through a 100 per cent

owned company White Whale Pty Ltd owns 50 per cent of ninemsn. If we look the other

way, PBL owns 50 per cent of Sky Cable.

James Packer in Melbourne in 2020. Picture: Aaron Francis

“Sky Cable itself is also 50 per cent owned by News Limited. If we look at the relationship

between Sky Cable and Foxtel, we find that Publishing and Broadcasting Ltd and News

Limited, through owning Sky Cable, also own 50 per cent of Foxtel.’’

Foxtel has since seen ownership changes and is now 65 per cent owned by News Corp Australia with the balance owned by Telstra.

Mr Packer’s directorships also include Sky Cable and Foxtel Cable Television, and he also served, albeit briefly, as a director of Ten Network Holdings, from December 13, 2010 to March 2, 2011.

On the entertainment front Hoyts and Ticketek get a guernsey, while he dipped his toe in fashion for six years as a director from 2000-2006 with Pretty Girl Fashion Group.

The Packer family’s private investment vehicle Consolidated Press Holdings sold Pretty Girl - whose brands included Table Eight, Rockmans, BeMe, and W. Lane - for $74.7m to Noni B in 2016.

The Packer family sold out of Pretty Girl fashion Group in 2016.

Sports and leisure-aligned interests included Perisher Blue - the ski resort which the Packer family held a 75 per cent stake in, Eastern Suburbs Leagues Club, the Kerry Packer Cricket Foundation, and of course, the positions with Burswood and Crown.

Perisher Blue was sold for $176m to US company Vail Resorts in 2015, ending the family’s 43 year association with the Snowy Mountains resort.

There are appear to have been a couple of purges of board positions, with July 7 1998 seeing a swath of company positions cut from the roster, including ACP Mastheads, Ticketek Victoria and PBL Short Term.

The last great upheaval came in late June and early July, 2018, when Mr Packer’s roles in more than 20 entities came to an end, leaving him without a single Australian-based directorship, according to a search of the ASIC register.

He does hold shareholdings in nine companies, with Mr Johnston, Mr Matrone and Catherine Davies holding directorships in some of these, while the relationship with Mr Onisforou continues through his shareholdings in Mistysurf, Mistymill and Mistytime.

There does not appear to be any crossover in directorships or shareholdings with former wife Erica Packer, who currently appears to be a director of just one company, her longtime private company Cheetah B, where Daniel Petre is also a director.

James Packer’s former wife Erica.

And then there is the real estate associated with the companies - properties in Bellevue Hill, Bondi, and the $20 million Aspen, Colorado, estate on West Buttermilk Rd purchased in 2013 and shared with Erica.

James Packer's Aspen, Colorado, home on West Buttermilk Rd. Picture: ww.realtor.com

Decked out with a theatre room, library and seven bedrooms and bathrooms, the house was built by US luxury home builder Gregor “Skip” Gozzo and offers “arguably the best views in all of Aspen’’.

The Bondi real estate includes his former Notts Ave home he bought for a reported $425,000 in 1995 while engaged to former model and actress Kate Fischer, and which she sold back in 2000.

And then there is the $22m apartment at Bondi - the scene of his infamous brawl in May 2014 with good friend and then head of Nine Entertainment Co David Gyngell.

The pair, who have known each other since their school days, later made up after the punch on, which started after Mr Packer fired off an angry text demanding a Channel Nine news truck be moved from outside his house.

Mr Gyngell later admitted to throwing the first punch.

The Nine Entertainment Co board in late 2018 - Catherine West, Peter Costello, Samantha Lewis, Hugh Marks, Janette Kendall and David Gyngell.

There is also a near-beachfront apartment in Tel Aviv listed.

Mr Packer’s close relationship with now Israeli opposition leader Benjamin Netanyahu has been well documented, including his purchase of a “seaside mansion” next to Mr Netanyahu’s residence.

When Mr Packer appeared before the Bergin inquiry looking into casino company Crown’s NSW operations, he gave evidence via video link from his private yacht, IJE - believed to be named after his children Indigo Jackson and Emmanuelle.

The yacht, which can host 22 guests in 11 suites, is currently listed for sale with a price tag of $270m.

James Packer’s yacht IJE, is currently on the market. Source: Burgess.

Mr Packer will on Friday front the royal commission examining Crown’s Perth operations, in a disastrous week for the company during which Commissioner Ray Finkelstein, who led Victoria’s Royal Commission into Crown Resorts, recommended that Mr Packer be forced to sell down his 37 per cent stake in Crown to 5 per cent within three years.

His role in influencing the board was also criticised.

“The size of the CPH holding of Crown, coupled with the ubiquitous and powerful influence of Mr Packer, led to the creation of a team of loyal directors and senior managers. Those directors and managers were committed and steadfast in their devotion to assisting Mr Packer achieve his business pursuits,” Mr Finkelstein said.

While Mr Packer’s role as a company director in Australia appears to be, for the moment at least, on hiatus, the story of his larger than life role in Australian corporate history continues.