Gretel Packer turns 50 without James

Illustration: Rod Clement.

Billionaire Gretel Packer, the elder of the late Kerry Packer’s two children, will celebrate her 50th birthday tonight with family and friends in Sydney.

James and Gretel Packer at Rockpool Bar and Grill in Sydney. Picture: Richard Dobson

An evening soiree taking over a fashionable Sydney eastern suburbs restaurant will be hosted by her mother Ros Packer and Gretel’s three children, Francesca, Ben and William, with the Consolidated Press-managed guest list boasting a who’s who of the Harbour City.

But sadly gaming billionaire brother James Packer — who turns 49 in a couple of weeks and shares his birthday with Lachlan Murdoch, who will turn 45— can’t make the happy celebration.

The younger sibling, who on Sunday executed a $450 million sale of a near-5 per cent stake in his Crown Resorts, will instead be in Israel, tied up on business.

Relations between the siblings had been rocky amid talks towards the financial settlement of their father’s will at the end of last year.

But they are now said to be on a much stronger footing. We gather James’s inability to attend will be keenly felt by his sister.

The pair are believed to have spoken by telephone last week.

Gretel’s dinner celebration will be followed by a late-night after-party at her home on Fairfax Road, Bellevue Hill.

Taking stock

As part of Gretel Packer’s $1.25 billion-odd deal with her brother, on which she was advised by Caledonia Investments’ Will Vicars, the now 50-year-old received a swag of shares in the Nasdaq-listed online real ­estate marketplace Zillow.

Caledonia Investments’ Will Vicars.

Since the deal, the stock she got from her brother has doubled in value from about $US20 a share to $US40.

The pair are believed to each have about 2.3 per cent in Zillow, with Vicars’ Caledonia still the company’s largest single share­holder.

Her stake was worth about $200m when the deal was completed on Christmas Eve last year.

Following the financial settlement Gretel has continued taking charge of her own and her children’s financial destiny.

She is now the director of a range of new vehicles, the latest of which — Rekcap Pty Ltd — she established earlier this month.

Get it? It’s Packer backwards. It only took us a few hours to work that one out.

Just horsing around

The twice-divorced Gretel Packer also ended up with a quarter share of the family’s beloved Ellerston luxury estate in the Hunter Valley. Her stake is worth about $30m.

Kerry Packer and son James playing polo in 1993.

Another quarter of the property is owned by her brother’s Consolidated Press, while the other half is with listed Crown — in which, after his sell-down, James Packer has a 48 per cent stake. Crown’s generous shareholders paid $60m for their share last year.

Ellerston has been the home of the late Kerry Packer’s beloved polo interests, which James — never as passionate about the sport — sought to thin out last year via a large-scale public fire-sale of the Ellerston polo ponies that netted $1.8m.

The move shattered gentle souls in the polo community. But it appears that Packer’s widow Ros has — like Argentinian polo great Gonzalo Pieres — swooped in to save the day, finalising negotiations with her son to take over the Packer polo assets in her own right.

The 78-year-old’s new vehicle for the investment is Ellerston Onassis Polo Pty Ltd, which in part takes its name from one of her late husband’s favourite ponies, Onassis.

After his death more than 10 years ago, Packer was buried at Ellerston, alongside the horse.

Mrs Packer visits Ellerston often and it is believed it is her intention to eventually be buried there also.

Son James is also a regular visitor to Ellerston, as a retreat from his international lifestyle.

He is believed to have spent several days there at the start of this year after he and his fiancee Mariah Carey spent New Year’s Eve in Melbourne, with the songstress performing a one-off concert at the Crown Palladium Ballroom.

Foreign Minister Julie Bishop and her partner David Panton were personal guests of the billionaire that night.

After the concert the couple then journeyed together to Ellerston, just ahead of Packer’s proposal to the songstress later in January.

Beale farewelled

One of Australia’s richest women Jeanne Pratt farewelled her dear friend Felicity Beale yesterday.

Jeanne Pratt. Picture: Julie Kiriacoudis.

Beale, who passed away on August 19 after a short battle with cancer, was a founding director and benefactor of not-for-profit theatre company The Production Company, of which Pratt is also a director.

Pratt gave a heartfelt speech at the service yesterday at The Pavilion at Melbourne’s Arts Centre. It was standing room only as hundreds gathered to pay their respects, including Pratt’s daughter Fiona Geminder and son-in-law Alex Waislitz, Victorian Liberal Party president Michael Kroger and former premier Jeff Kennett. Beale was married to Toorak businessman and former Liberal MP Julian Beale, who also spoke yesterday.

One of the couple’s daughters, Debbie Beale, was the first wife of Opposition Leader Bill Shorten. Shorten is now married to Chloe Bryce, whose mother is former Governor-general Quentin Bryce.

These days Beale is a Canberra lobbyist. It was Beale who connected Shorten to the Pratt family. Jeanne’s late husband, billionaire box king Richard Pratt, famously gave Shorten a ride in Pratt’s helicopter to Tasmania in the aftermath of the Beaconsfield mine disaster — a role that thrust the Australian Workers’ Union national secretary onto the national stage.

A win for Conroy

Moving to another Labor factional heavyweight, Stephen Conroy, who has finally had some good sporting news.

Stephen Conroy has finally had some good sporting news. Picture: Gary Ramage.

Senator Conroy — Labor’s spokesman for sport — was the best-ranked among politicians in the Canberra Press Gallery’s prestigious AFL tipping competition.

The victory comes weeks after he was denied a spot on the Australian delegation at the Rio Olympics.

While Conroy’s tipping name was “Go Pies!”, we understand the Collingwood supporter wasn’t averse to backing their opposition from time to time.

After the season Eddie McGuire’s team have had — particularly the club president’s multiple brain freezes — few would blame Conroy for that.

And the second placed pollie tipster? The NSW Green with Soviet tendencies, Lee Rhiannon. At last a contribution from the hard-left senator her more moderate boss Richard Di Natale can be happy about.