James Packer still holds key to his empire

Illustration: Rod Clement.

It’s much bigger than just Crown Resorts and Consolidated Press Holdings. Over the past three weeks, billionaire James Packer has relinquished directorships of 21 local corporate entities.

That’s every single directorship he had in Australia.

Margin Call understands the formal withdrawal is both to reduce the administrative workload of the Crown Resorts owner and to streamline the highly complex structure of his private interests.

As Packerologists would admit, it’s a tangle.

Packer, who turns 51 in September, began the systematic paperwork shedding with his best-known private vehicle CPH on June 27.

James Packer. Picture: Getty Images

That followed his stepping down from the Crown board in March, citing mental health issues.

Packer’s exit from CPH, which controls his stake in Crown and other major investments, left longstanding lieutenants the London-based Guy Jalland, 62, and the Cronulla-­residing Mark Johnston, 57, as the group’s only directors.

But, however trusted, the handover to Jalland and Johnston doesn’t extend as far as the Caribbean.

Margin Call understands that rather than handing ultimate control of his fortune to his execs, Packer remains a director of the Bahamas-domiciled Consolidated Press International Holdings Limited (which, despite its tax haven roots, is an Australian tax resident).

The company is the ultimate owner of the local CPH.

That means Packer, whose new 55m super yacht EJI was last spotted at the famous Spanish wellbeing island of Ibiza, still has the last word on his empire.

The most recent CPH annual report for the year to June 30, 2017, reveals the group made a net profit of $73 million and paid out $186m as dividends. The group had net assets of $6 billion.

Packer still has shareholdings in 11 Australian corporate vehicles, but after the recent changes he has no seat at any of their board tables.

Crown review

While billionaire James Packer has been shedding his paperwork, it seems Dan Andrews’ Gaming Minister Marlene Kairouz is sitting on hers.

Since mid-May Victoria’s gaming regulator has been conducting a review into Crown Melbourne, the operator and licence holder of the city’s giant casino and the heart of Packer’s empire.

The review is conducted by the Victorian Commission for Gambling and Liquor Regulation every five years.

Margin Call understands the Catherine Myers-led regulator handed its final report to Kairouz on July 2, more than a fortnight ago.

We gather Myers’ review was shown to Crown before it went to the minister. A response from Packer’s management on the report’s findings has been included in the final document that is currently sitting on Kairouz’s desk.

All that’s left is for the Member for Kororoit to flash the green light to the VCGLR, which will then release its good work to the public.

Can’t be long now.

Burke’s eco-tourism

Looks like Bill Shorten should add the eco-tourism portfolio to Tony Burke’s shadow ministerial responsibilities.

Burke has just listed his Tasmanian rustic weekender on Airbnb. Pack your mini-guitar and you too could role play as the vacationing manager of opposition business.

The embrace of the sharing economy by Labor’s shadow minister for the Environment, Citizenship and the Arts is a sign of the political times.

With the next federal election 10 months away at most, and possibly quite a bit sooner, Burke and his partner Skye Laris, his former staffer who now works for the Turnbull government’s least favourite energy company, Andy Vesey’s AGL, are going to find it harder and harder to slip off to Tassie.

Burke, the member for Watson in Sydney’s west, has long been a passionate advocate for the Apple Isle.

Back in the Rudd-Gillard-Rudd government, Burke was a key force behind the classification of much of Tasmania’s wilderness as a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

In mid-2015 Burke bought the ecologically minded weekender in Meander Valley, south of Devonport.

Last year he went on to buy the vacant block of land adjacent to the home. Both are mortgaged to Matt Comyn’s Commonwealth Bank.

Our political class is increasingly making use of short-term online rental portals.

Liberal backbencher John Alexander — the former tennis champion — lists his $5m Moss Vale estate near Bowral with one of Airbnb’s rivals.

Alexander’s eight-bedder is on offer for $1600 a night. It’s in something of a different league to Burke’s shack at Jackeys Marsh, which is yours for $160 a night. Still, good to see a bit of entrepreneurialism on both sides of the house.

Lew’s war and peace

After our recent coverage of Solomon Lew’s Singapore supreme court battle with Credit Suisse board member Kai Nargolwala over a Thai villa, here’s some proof the billionaire can make peace too.

Margin Call can reveal Lew has ended his legal fight with Steve Madden (a colourful New York shoe entrepreneur who spent 31 months in a Florida prison after being convicted of securities fraud).

Steve Madden.

The billionaire’s action was launched after Lew allegedly discovered Madden — who made a cameo of sorts in Martin Scorsese’s Wolf of Wall Street — was overcharging his Australian distributor Lew for shoes.

After many fighting words, Lew’s pursuit of Madden in the New York Supreme Court was formally discontinued by Justice Saliann Scarpulla in April after the two parties came to an undisclosed settlement.

Nargolwala might interpret this as proof he can resolve the dispute over the sale of a circa $5m Phuket villa (which Lew is strongly of the opinion he had an agreement to buy).

But Nargolwala — and enigmatic Swiss businessman Christian Larpin who beat Lew to the villa — could see it a different way.

It looks like they are now the sole targets of Lew’s extra-curricular legal action, which is currently worming through Singapore’s supreme court.