James Packer makes a bumper $600m profit thanks to his tech stock investments

Billionaire James Packer has shareholdings in global tech stocks such as Nvidia and Meta, and his new investment strategy has landed his private investment vehicle a massive financial boost.

Billionaire James Packer at his Los Angeles mansion Picture: Coleman-Rayner

Billionaire James Packer’s strong run as a technology stock picker has helped him record a huge net profit of almost $600m for his private investment vehicle this year.

Mr Packer has also added about $620m to his asset base thanks to the rising share price of big tech firms in the US like Nvidia and Meta.

The financial accounts of his Consolidated Press Holdings, lodged with the corporate regulator on Monday, reveal a statutory net profit of $590m for the year to June 30.

That was more than double the $216m result lodged last year for the 2023 financial year, and came with an increase in his assets and a $120m dividend.

His private company has more than $11.39bn in financial assets on its balance sheet, and about $4.68bn in net assets after taking into account debt and other liabilities.

Mr Packer received about $3.3bn from the sale of his holdings in casino and resorts giant Crown when it was taken over by private equity firm Blackstone in the last week of the 2022 financial year.

He then appointed an investment committee to help him take care of the funds he received, which has been put into some big tech stock holdings, property and assorted other assets.

Mr Packer owns almost $500m of shares in Nvidia, once the world’s hottest stock, according to the most recent report filed in August with the US Securities and Exchange Commission by Packer’s private operating company, Consolidated Press International.

Nvidia, the artificial intelligence chip maker, is joined in the Packer portfolio by Meta, the parent company of Mark Zuckerberg’s Facebook, and Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co.

Mr Packer’s holdings in those two companies are worth about $452m and $366m respectively.

He now has 12 stocks in the CPI portfolio, according to Bloomberg. Nvidia, Meta and Taiwan Semiconductor account for almost $1.3bn of the $1.4bn worth of shares his investment company holds.

That concentrated strategy came after Mr Packer had hired Sydney money manager Lawrence Myers to run CPH, and reshuffled his executive ranks, which included the exit of longstanding lieutenants Guy Jalland and Mike Johnston.

Mr Myers joined with a mandate to simplify Mr Packer’s investments, The Australian’s Margin Call column reported earlier this year.

Mr Packer had held up to 24 stocks a year ago, according to SEC filings. SAP, Netflix, Expedia and Hilton Worldwide are among the companies he has exited.

Also gone were Visa and MasterCard as well as shares in private equity company stock such as Blackstone – the company that took over Crown in Australia – and Apollo and KKR.

Mr Packer did take some profits from selling down Nvidia stock during the year, and has otherwise been building his holdings in a variety of other technology companies – albeit at still relatively small amounts.

He has almost $5m shares in dlocal, a Uruguay fintech specialising in cross-border payments in emerging markets listed on the NASDAQ, and a $7m holding in US software as a service analytics business Datadog, which is another NASDAQ stock.

The CPH accounts show $1.54bn in revenue for 2024, although that amount includes $979m in “dividends received from controlled entities” and $477m in “debt forgiveness from controlled entities”.

The accounts show about $180m in an entity called CPH Zillow Holdings, likely shares in US real estate firm Zillow, and other investments such as NRL club South Sydney.

CPH’s accounts lodged with the Australian Securities and Investments Commission are not consolidated, so they do not give a complete picture of Mr Packer’s wealth.

But they do provide a snapshot of the large amount of assets under his control and the fluctuations in value each year.