James Packer piles into property market with eye on Spotswood Yards

Todd Nisbet, left, and James Packer have their eyes on a potential property play in Melbourne. Picture: Aaron Francis

Yet another property play from James Packer, this time in the shadow of Melbourne’s West Gate Bridge. We’re hearing the billionaire and his former executive Todd Nisbet are making inquiries around Spotswood Yards, a developing precinct on the site of the old Victorian Railway workshops – it’s a project being run by Michael and Omran Dib of Blue Earth Group. They’ve had plans lodged with local authorities since 2020 and received approval for some amendments last week, with the development firming up to be a mix of apartments, a hotel, hospitality and retail space.

As we keep noting, Packer’s deals in property seem to be piling up by the week. It was only this month that he inked a deal to back a development in Toorak and, separately, in Sydney’s Rushcutters Bay.

Nvidia punt

Meanwhile, he’ll have his eye on chipmaker Nvidia as it prepares to hand down its first-quarter results, due to drop Thursday morning. Packer’s holding almost 450,000 shares in Wall Street’s third-largest firm, or roughly 15 per cent of his wealth.

Everyone’s been made giddy by the spate of hikes in Nvidia’s stock price, and these have added more than $30m to Packer’s portfolio since March, a good look for Canadian tech entrepreneur Daniel Nadler who’s managing it all.

Little wonder Packer was looking so relaxed at Cannes in recent days, his $250m gigayacht still moored at nearby Antibes.

Leonardo DiCaprio joins James Packer on board his superyacht in Cannes. Picture: Instagram

Myer madness

Olivia Wirth knows a thing or two about loyalty programs from her time at Qantas, where she led the airline’s frequent flyer program. In light of that, she might want to consider a discreet touch-up of Myer’s abilities in that space when she takes over as executive chair next month.

An email pumped out to members on Wednesday offered a tantalising $1000 voucher for every $150 spent in a day, with the benefit earmarked to land by June 5, or the day after Wirth is scheduled to commence in her role.

Too good to be true, apparently. The offer was retracted in a follow-up email three hours later informing customers that instead of $1000 they’d receive 1000 bonus credits, valued at about $10. We can only wonder how many people spent $150 in the intervening period, of course.

New Myer executive chair Olivia Wirth: hold that email. Picture: John Feder

Office affair

Secretary Says is the name given to the all-staff dispatches put out by Rob Stefanic, the Secretary of the Department of Parliamentary Services, and it sure sounds like that old children’s game Simon Says, a classic of the do-as-I-say-and-not-as-I-do genre. Stefanic’s most recent missive, issued last week, led with some surprising remarks about the Jenkins review into parliamentary workplace standards and its recommendations on leadership – namely that leaders should “reinforce the message that those individuals who engage in misconduct will not be protected, rewarded or promoted”.

Funny that, because while we’re not suggesting Stefanic has engaged in misconduct of any kind, Margin Call has definitely drawn attention to an office romance within DPS between Stefanic and his former deputy, Cate Saunders, who left the public service last year. DPS has been abuzz about the relationship in the weeks since amid questions over Stefanic and whether he declared the relationship, and whether he approved Saunders’ incentive to retire payment. Not a word out of the department after we raised this matter, despite our entreaties for answers.

Which is weird, because Stefanic spoke in that very same Secretary Says about the core DPS value of accountability, among others. “These are principles that anchor my own behaviour and are critical to public confidence in our work,” he wrote. Accountability? Hardly on display when neither Stefanic nor the department has responded to repeated questions on all this untidiness.

Night at Hooters

Liberal preselections this Saturday and everyone involved is flinging mud and hoping some of it will stick to their hated candidate. But the sludge really has run a bit thin so far. Senator Andrew Bragg, one of four contenders, was written up for dropping the C-bomb in a video he recorded on Anzac Day. No biggy.

Meanwhile, Margin Call has been alerted to some ancient dirt dug up about Lincoln Parker, who was hacked up by the Herald Sun in 2009 for billing taxpayers the $855 cost of a night at Caeser’s Palace in Las Vegas, and $15.38 for a cab ride to Hooters, among other incidentals. That led to an investigation into his conduct, and Parker told us he was exonerated of any wrongdoing. The longer version is that he’d been working for the Victorian government and was invited to Sin City to speak at an event focused on service-disabled veterans.

When it was over he and some attendees felt like a burger, so they ventured to Hooters, as someone had talked up the quality of the fare. “It turned out the burgers were rubbish,” he said. He’s also still smarting over the news piece that briefly made him famous in the first place. “It was almost entirely false, when you read that article, but I’m glad to talk about it because anytime I can speak about (veterans) it’s a win.”