Janine Lowy’s online posts about divorcing Peter Lowy; Cranbrook’s Nicholas Sampson probed over Paris junket

Peter Lowy with wife Janine and parents Shirley and Frank Lowy in 2002.

Peter Lowy, the son of billionaire Westfield co-founder Sir Frank Lowy, debuted as ‘‘Peter Drysdale’’ on the comedy club circuit of LA and Las Vegas several years ago, where he had a go at stand-up, telling jokes about dating and divorce.

“What does a man who’s been married for 31 years fantasize about? Leaving,” went one of the wisecracks.

We’re not sure his ex, Janine, found it all that funny.

Steven Lowy, left, with Sir Frank Lowy, Peter Lowy and David Lowy. Picture: Hollie Adams

A committed user of question-and-answer website Quora, she identifies herself as “abandoned after thirty years of marriage by a narcissist” and has spent considerable energy answering questions in like-minded support groups.

Janine filed for divorce in 2016, with Lowy, based in Los Angeles, having since remarried American businesswoman Sandra Barros Lowy.

She was appointed to the board of the Wallis Annenberg Centre for the Performing Arts, in Beverly Hills, in September.

Screenshots of Janine Lowy posts on Quora. Picture - Supplied

On Quora, Janine identifies herself using her full name, and while not naming Lowy in any posts, she spills a considerable amount of tea and says he left the marriage, after 30 years, when he was “busted for having an affair”.

“I used to tell him how smart and good looking he was all the time but, like am addict (sic), they want more and more attention especially as they hit ‘that certain age’,” she wrote.

Peter Lowy and Sandra Barros Lowy.

“The narcissist is unable to emotionally attach so for them it’s just easier to walk away and start cultivating the good guy image with new people.

“So we are simply the carnage left behind bewildered and traumatised.

“They just start a new life.”

Cranbrook goes to Paris

Cranbrook School’s most recent AGM ended with interim chair Geoff Lovell announcing a contract extension for headmaster Nicholas Sampson. It means Sampson will stay on to oversee the school’s co-ed transition when that starts in 2026. Scheduled to scale up into 2029, it’s an arrangement worth a considerable amount of money, considering that Sampson takes home a package of about $1m each year.

He was supported by former school presidents Helen Nugent and Roger Massy-Green. We assume they backed-in Sampson knowing that he was investigated at some length last year over an allegedly unauthorised trip to Paris, the nature of which caused administrators some concern.

Sampson was invited to attend two conferences in the French capital, and his account of the jaunt talked up both events as an opportunity to “represent Cranbrook at two important gatherings”.

The first would later be described in his own school-wide communique, dispatched in August, as a “strategic summit” held by the World Leading Schools’ Association, an organisation based in Beijing, Shanghai and Amstelveen, in The Netherlands.

“We were the only Australian school invited to participate and discussions suggested exciting opportunities for us in terms of alliances, exchanges and shared programmes,” Sampson wrote.

The second event was a meeting of the high-blown sounding G30 (“Apologies for the grandeur of the names of these groups!” he wrote), billed as a consortium of “interesting schools doing innovative things in fascinating settings”.

Jon North.

Sampson’s take was that his attendance in Paris represented “great value to Cranbrook”, although a report prepared by school lawyer Peter Arthur, and provided to the school’s 11-member governance committee, didn’t quite come to the same conclusion.

Obtained by Margin Call, the report describes Sampson as essentially going MIA from the school over a 17-day period in the middle of term.

He did not inform then president Jon North of his whereabouts or receive formal approval “as is required under his Employment Agreement”.

It’s no secret that Sampson and North suffered from a toxic relationship last year over the school’s proposed roadmap towards co-ed learning, and it seems the questions over Sampson’s trip to Paris only aggravated matters further.

When the school council queried the headmaster’s absence and the purpose of the trip, Sampson responded through a lawyer.

The report, written in December, noted discrepancies with Sampson’s account of the gatherings and their purpose. Rather than a meeting of global educators at the so-called G30, “the picture that emerged was that the G30 meeting was in fact a series of conversations with one individual who was also attending the WLSA Summit”.

Cranbrook School headmaster Nicholas Sampson

As for that summit, it took place over two days rather than an entire week, and came with an offer from the WLSA to pay for Sampson’s accommodation expenses and contribute $US6000 towards his airfare costs. The report harboured doubts over what it offered for the Cranbrook School.

“In reality it appears to have been a succession of dinners, lunches, a visit to a chateau and a winery tour, financed by the Chinese government,” it said.

Strangely, Cranbrook told Margin Call on Sampson’s behalf that he attended the WLSA summit with the “endorsement of the previous school council”, a statement clearly at odds with the council’s probing of the matter and the report provided to the governance committee.

As many will know, the old council dissolved itself at the end of last year over the acrimony that developed between North, Sampson and the network of wealthy, influential backers who supported him during the co-ed campaign, namely Will Vicars, Warwick Negus, Angus Dawson and Nicola Wakefield Evans.

“The new School Council advises there are no outstanding matters before it on this subject and considers this matter to be closed,” a Cranbrook school council spokeswoman said. “The Headmaster has the full support of the Council.”