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Yoni Bashan

Gretel Packer’s play to save Metro-Minerva theatre; Banducci in breach of flight etiquette

The historic Metro-Minerva theatre in Sydney’s Potts Point has been bought by Gretel Packer. Picture: NCA NewsWire / Nikki Short
The historic Metro-Minerva theatre in Sydney’s Potts Point has been bought by Gretel Packer. Picture: NCA NewsWire / Nikki Short

Gretel Packer has emerged as the surprise buyer of the historic Metro-Minerva theatre in Sydney’s Potts Point, a controversial site that was put on the market earlier this year, just weeks after being approved for a maligned hotel refurbishment.

The developer’s vision had been to convert the storied venue into a 63-room, five-star boutique hotel with an auditorium for 250 people. A vocal group of residents hated the idea because they wanted the theatre left unharmed and turned into a 1000-seat venue instead. Guess who won that battle?

Under the ownership of Packer, the venue is now far more likely to be revived rather than kicked into the ground with the help of a wrecking ball. We know it’s Packer who bought it because her company Sacred Firebird – jointly run with the manager of her family office, Glen Selikowitz – is listed as the buyer. It was snapped up at $25.85m from developer Central Element.

Boarded up and abandoned, the art-deco theatre has been a favourite for years among vagrants, drifters and rough sleepers around Kings Cross who used its exterior as a shelter from the elements. The interior, meanwhile, is said to be filled with old junk from when George Miller used it to house his film and TV company back in the eighties.

Packer’s involvement here comes within months of her decision to step down from the board of the Sydney Theatre Company, just as it was dealing with the financial fallout from an actor’s protest in support of ­Palestinians.

Gretel Packer. Picture: Don Arnold
Gretel Packer. Picture: Don Arnold
The Minerva Potts Point sale brochure from JLL Hotel and Hospitality.
The Minerva Potts Point sale brochure from JLL Hotel and Hospitality.

Not that the timing was necessarily her fault. Margin Call reported at the time that she’d actually wanted to step down a year earlier but former Commonwealth Bank CEO Ian Narev unchivalrously jumped ship first, and so a decision was made to stagger their exits. It would have seemed weird if Narev and Packer departed simultaneously. People would ­obviously talk. The great difficulty with even thinking about a refurb of the Minerva has been its heritage listing, its proscenium arch and ceilings basically untouchable by decree since 2020.

It was former NSW arts minister Don Harwin who quietly pushed that along, and the smart money just knows he did it to save the venue from cowboy developers who would have gutted the place and put up a parking lot.

The suggestion now is that Packer probably bought the venue on the advice of pals in the arts community, or for them, which is what’s fuelling the early guessing that Sydney may well count it as a fifth theatre in good time (provided Stephen Found’s attempt to build a second theatre at The Star – where absolutely nothing goes to plan – doesn’t get scuppered). After all, Packer’s been a benefactor for years; she joined the STC board in 2014, donated millions, and effectively bankrolled its 2021 season after Covid nearly tore the place apart in 2020.

It’s also a play that caps off a spree of buy-ups over the past 24 months, including a $9m apartment that she bought in the same suburb last year, and a $26.5m commercial building in Edgecliff, from where the family office hangs its shingle.

Central Element, meanwhile, spent three years battling with residents to push through a DA, only to run a mile from the construction costs. The company was staring at a bill of roughly $90m, or more than $1m per room.

Feet on the ground

Outgoing Woolworths CEO Brad Banducci assumed his workingman pose, once again, during a flight from Sydney to Perth on Monday morning. A spy on board noticed Banducci in economy for the five-hour trip. Are we to take this to mean that the tough trading conditions he flagged in May are finally cutting into the Fresh Food travel ­allowance? Apparently not. Seems it’s company policy that all staff, even the boss, travel coach on domestic routes.

Outgoing Woolworths CEO Brad Banducci.
Outgoing Woolworths CEO Brad Banducci.

Look, it’s always refreshing to see a CEO slumming it with the hoi polloi, loosening their neck tie for a minute and seamlessly blending in among the masses. Then again, this is the same Banducci who shunned the hatted restaurants of Sydney on the day of his retirement and marked the occasion with a humble steak sandwich and his iPad at a local cafe near the office.

Whatever. Call him a feet on the ground kind of guy, if you want, but that’s an idiom the boss is clearly taking way too literally. For there was one unexpected sight on-board and it was Banducci ditching his shoes and socks just prior to takeoff and sallying forth towards the amenities. We’ve heard of ‘‘rawdogging’’, but Banducci’s taking that to strange new places.

If anything, toilets on the plane are one location where the feet must remain covered. You’d sooner stand on anthrax spores than chance it barefoot in those bathrooms.

Plus, shoes without socks – even while seated – is a severe breach of flight etiquette.

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Original URL: https://www.theaustralian.com.au/business/margin-call/gretel-packers-play-to-save-metrominerva-theatre-banducci-in-breach-of-flight-etiquette/news-story/ea999439fedfc252063aeb6a7053122d