James Packer cash splash on townhouses; Jayne Hrdlicka’s jobs summit snub

James Packer with his children Jackson (12), Indigo (13) and Emmanuelle (9) in Cabo San Lucas, Mexico. Picture: Ana Badillo/The Australian

When you have $3.3bn burning a hole in your pocket you have to search far and wide for investment opportunities.

Billionaire James Packer, fresh from cashing out of Crown Resorts, has started spending some of the money that Blackstone deposited into his account.

Margin Call has learned that Packer, currently aboard his $250m gigayacht IJE, floating about the Med for the European summer, has invested in a small residential development opportunity in the suburbs of Victorian satellite city Geelong.

Last we heard, Packer’s yacht was en route from Monaco bound for the Spanish party island of Ibiza.

Illustration: Rod Clement

The property investment is an off-radar move for Packer, who has joined with former Crown Resorts strategy boss Todd Nesbit, who left the casino empire about a year ago.

Also thought to be onboard for the plans, which are said to be for a $100m townhouse development in Corio, is Melbourne businessman and ABC director Joe Gersh via his South Yarra-based Gersh Funds Management.

Successful Melbourne residential developer and businessman Deniz Sivasli is also part of the consortium.

Gersh, a director of the Garry Weiss-chaired Cromwell Property, confirmed to Margin Call that an entity associated with his investment management operation was part of the Geelong property deal and its planned development.

But he wouldn’t comment on the involvement of others, including Packer, although documents seen by Margin Call confirm the billionaire, Nesbit and Sivasli are all on board.

Margin Call understands the group has purchased just over three hectares of land in the suburb which is zoned for residential development.

A former state primary school site, the property was part of a sell-off by Victoria’s Department of Treasury and Finance.

The development project is currently at the drawing board phase, with the land settling at the start of August; it will need to proceed through planning before work can begin.

Depending on what end of the market the townhouses are developed for, the project could be worth in the order of $100m.

The billionaire’s investment will be overseen by long-serving and trusted Sydney-based lieutenant Mike Johnston, who is currently a director of Packer’s private Consolidated Press Holdings.

It is believed the development is the first of several to be planned by the investment consortium.

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Summit snub

Only a select few people have been invited to attend the Albanese government’s Jobs and Skills Summit to be held in Canberra a fortnight hence, with numbers strictly limited.

But one person who has not been cordially invited is Virgin Australia CEO Jayne Hrdlicka, who appears to have been left off the guest list for the two-day event. An oversight, surely, except we’ve confirmed her Qantas counterpart, Alan Joyce, has in fact received a request for the pleasure of his company. Make of that what you will.

Virgin Australia chief executive Jayne Hrdlicka. Picture: Lyndon Mechielsen

Why would Hrdlicka have received the cold shoulder? Would it have anything to do with Catherine King, the Infrastructure Minister, being no great fan of the abrasive airline boss?

Unlikely. What’s more plausible is the difficulty the Albanese government might have faced if it hosted a CEO currently the subject of a workplace discrimination dispute and somewhat unpleasant allegations that are being ventilated in the Federal Circuit Court.

Virgin’s former chief pilot Michael Fitzgerald is claiming that he was discriminated against for “mental illness and injury, caused by the conduct of Ms Hrdlicka”, in a case the airline has strenuously rejected and dismissed as “baseless litigation by a disgruntled former employee”.

About 100 participants have been invited to attend the summit at Parliament House. They are expected to include Atlassian co-founder Scott Farquhar, Toll Global Express CEO Christine Holgate, and senior representatives from Coles, Woolworths, Rio Tinto and BHP.

But Hrdlicka shouldn’t fret too much over the matter, for it appears there’s still room to attend what’s amusingly been dubbed the Jobs Summit Fringe Festival, sponsored by law firm Kingston Reid, which is being held on the same day.

Unfortunately the paid event is not of quite the same calibre as the Albanese summit, with speakers scheduled to include a clutch of union secretaries, Greens leader Adam Bandt and Senators Tony Sheldon and Jacqui Lambie.
A Virgin spokeswoman said the airline was looking forward to participating in a pre-summit aviation Roundtable, to be chaired by King, adding that the airline would be “actively contributing to the Jobs and Skills Summit through the Employment White Paper process”.

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Hot property

South Australian Labor MP Louise Miller-Frost took to Facebook just prior to the election to champion a prospective Albanese government policy that sought to address housing affordability for young Australians.

“We have a housing crisis in Australia,” she lamented. “It’s harder to buy a home today than ever before.”

Louise Miller-Frost. Picture: NCA NewsWire / Gary Ramage

But not so, apparently, if you’re the member for Boothby, who is something of a tycoon-ish figure when it comes to property holdings and squeezing out supply, according to her registrable disclosures.

Uploaded on Wednesday, Miller-Frost’s interests include five investment properties in Adelaide and elsewhere, owned either by her or her spouse, in addition to their residential home in the suburb of Cumberland Park.

They’re all mortgaged with Macquarie Bank, the papers say, so we imagine she’s no fan of Bill Shorten’s old play to free up housing stocks by abolishing negative gearing, in case that ever does make a comeback.

Not bad for someone who fell into a heap over the tiny number of millennials unable to buy a home. Miller-Frost did not respond to a request for comment.