The price James Packer put on peace and privacy

James Packer has no desire to run an operational business again and would rather invest his billions with experts. But how does he stop boredom becoming a permanent feature of his existence?

After decades in the public spotlight, James Packer has no desire to run an operational business again and would rather invest his billions with experts. Picture: Rohan Kelly

It was a still, sunny, mid-winter Sunday afternoon in Aspen when James Packer received the news he had been praying for.

Crown’s decision to enter into a near $9bn sale agreement to Blackstone, which looks set to deliver Packer a $3.3bn payday and end his 20-year association with the gaming company started by his good friend and long-time mentor Lloyd Williams, will deliver him the quiet life he has longed for since his third emotional breakdown five years ago.

His critics might call it the ultimate get-out-of-jail card. But for the billionaire, who will eagerly support the deal at this price, his emotions were a mixture of pleasure and relief, assuming the transaction gets the necessary regulatory approvals.

Appropriately seated along side him at Packer’s Buttermilk Estate mansion in Aspen was Guy Jalland, his closest confidant and one of the few friends remaining from the string of billionaires, movie stars, celebrity advisers and hangers-on who have come and gone over the past — at times — tortuous decade of his life.

It was Jalland, as chief executive of Packer’s private company Consolidated Press Holdings, who crucially opened the door to Blackstone’s bid proceeding when in February last year he advised Packer not to fight the damning outcomes of the Bergin inquiry into Crown.

Less than 24 hours later, Jalland and CPH finance boss Michael Johnston tendered their resignations from the Crown board, a move critical in paving the way for Crown’s rehabilitation and, importantly, regaining its suitability to hold a licence for its new $2.2bn casino in Barangaroo.

It would also take the heat out of any potential Packer involvement in the Victorian government’s subsequent inquiry into Crown led by Ray Finklestein and a similar inquiry in Perth, which reports next month.

“I want to see Crown recover as best as possible. It’s important that CPH gets out of the way and has no involvement other than as a passive shareholder. Having our directors resign was an important step to give Crown the clear air it needs to get on with reform. Of course I am sad about the separation, but it’s the right thing to do,” Packer told me that day.

Since then Crown has been just that, a very passive Crown shareholder. Packer has been kept in the dark as to the goings-on at Crown and has only been kept informed of CPH’s negotiations with Blackstone through its advisers, Moelis.

While he had no say in his recruitment, Packer was heartened by the Crown board’s decision to appoint former Lend Lease CEO Steve McCann as CEO last year, believing he was the right man to turn the company around.

McCann also made a crucial move when he brought in boutique investment bank Gresham Partners to assist long time Crown adviser UBS in negotiations with Blackstone. It was a signal that Crown was ready to engage like never before, at the right price.

Since Blackstone’s initial offer, more than $800m in value has been added to its bid, signalling the private equity group’s confidence in McCann’s turnaround plan and in a Packer-less Crown.

After years of negative publicity, morale within the company has lifted among its loyal staff as a string of new staff appointments have been made in the executive ranks and on the board.

Over the past year, Packer himself has also been exemplary in the patience he has shown not to sell at any price, even in the dark days of a year ago when he was being ordered to sell down his stake in the company.

It is a far cry from 2019 when in a panic he agreed to sell a 19.9 per cent stake in Crown to Lawrence Ho’s Melco Resorts after a $10bn takeover deal with American casino giant Wynn Resorts collapsed.

It was an ill-fated decision which initiated the Bergin inquiry due to the alleged influence of Ho’s notorious father Stanley in Melco.

Given the bombshell evidence surrounding the Melco transaction presented to the Bergin inquiry, it could also still trigger future action by the corporate regulator against some CPH and Crown executives.

Since then Packer has been determined to hang on. His dream deal perhaps would have been a merger with casino rival Star Entertainment, which became a real possibility at one point last year when the Star pounced with an opportunistic Crown offer.

But subsequent revelations about Star’s troubled dealings with high rollers and governance failures took that deal off the table late last year.

Packer has also been aided in the Blackstone negotiations by Crown’s biggest investors — led by Perpetual — who have been vocal behind the scenes in recent months with Crown’s board and its executives, urging them to engage with Blackstone.

It is little wonder. At one point in March last year Crown’s shares were trading at $6.12 in the aftermath of the Bergin findings and at the height of the Covid pandemic, compared to the $13.10 cash offer price now agreed by Blackstone.

Packer will certainly quietly have regrets about Crown as he retires for the night in Aspen, the brand he tried to take to the world but instead ended up causing him nothing but grief in recent years as the management and governance of the company became a shambles.

The billionaire will take responsibility for his part in that.

The challenge for Packer from here — assuming the Blackstone deal is done by mid-year — will be how to prevent boredom becoming a permanent feature of his existence.

He has no desire to run an operational business again and would rather invest his billions with experts.

Packer’s already started doing so by backing a new investment group set up by his good friend, ex-Macquarie banker Ben Brazil, and backed by his other close friend Kerry Stokes and industry fund giant Unisuper.

He’s also been a long time support of the embattled Magellan co-founder Hamish Douglass and is said to have been saddened by his rapid demise over the past nine months.

For long-time observers of the Packer family and its prominent place in Australia’s political and corporate history, it will be a sad day to see the family’s name no longer in the limelight.

Yet for Packer, his ex-wife Erica and their children, they will finally have what they have long craved in their lives: privacy and peace.

Damon Kitney is the author of “The Price of Fortune - the untold story of being James Packer” published by Harper Collins.