James Packer’s ‘Mr X’ was BGH Capital’s Ben Gray

BGH Capital founding partner Ben Gray. Picture: Supplied

Private equity boss Ben Gray is understood to be the “Mr X” of ZCo who was on the receiving end of an alleged threatening email by James Packer.

Mr Gray, who now runs BGH Capital, was at private equity firm TPG at the time and was one of several parties in talks with Packer at the end of 2015 about funding a possible privatisation of Crown Resorts.

The whisper is that Gray actually hired some Australian ex-soldiers to look after him, fearing for his safety in the wake of Packer’s threats.

BGH Capital’s Ben Gray.

While the content of the emails Packer wrote to Gray have not been disclosed, there is chatter that it mentioned Packer’s relationship with Yossi Cohen, who is the current director of Mossad, the national intelligence agency of Israel.

Packer was introduced to Cohen by Hollywood film producer Arnon Milchan, who also introduced the billionaire to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

Gray did not respond to requests to comment on Wednesday.

In the NSW casino inquiry earlier this week Packer admitted he had verbally threatened a businessman who was named “Mr X” but said he was surprised the threat had made the man fearful of him.

Counsel assisting the inquiry, Adam Bell, asked Mr Packer why the NSW Independent Liquor and Gaming Authority could then trust in his “character and integrity” because the email was sent when he was still a Crown director,

Mr Packer replied: “Because I am being treated for my bipolar disease … I was sick at the time.”

Suffice to say the deal with Crown never proceeded.

Rankin file

After weeks of missing in action Robert Rankin has finally made a dramatic appearance at the Crown inquiry, but still only in spirit, not in person.

It was revealed on Tuesday that the now invisible man – who had offices in Hong Kong and Sydney when he was chairman of Crown in 2015 and 2016 – was right in the thick of a plot to take Crown private at the end of 2015.

In that context, Rankin was cc’d on a spectacular chain of emails which found their way into evidence in the inquiry showing James Packer made a serious threat to an executive of one of the potential privatisation partners when the billionaire didn’t get his way in the deal.

Packer quit the Crown board not long after and revealed he had told Rankin ahead of his departure that one of the reasons he was leaving was that he was feeling unwell.

But Crown made no mention of that issue in its ASX statement announcing his departure, which presumably was signed off by Rankin.

Robert Rankin.

Packer also denied that Rankin suggested he leave the board in December 2015.

Rankin bobbed up again early the next year when he updated the Crown board on what Packer termed a “financial restructuring and injection of capital into the Australian resorts” from US private equity firm Hellman & Friedman, then headed by former Fairfax chairman Brian Powers, which he said was related to the privatisation plan.

Rankin told the board that given the progress of that deal, he didn’t want to proceed with a proposal to have Packer installed as president of global strategy for Crown’s VIP arm, which would have netted him $11.5 million per year. But like the privatisation, that deal also fell over.

Packer certainly didn’t miss Rankin on Wednesday when he again partly blamed him for Crown’s poor corporate governance and risk management processes, which led to the arrest of its staff in China. Rankin and then Crown CEO Rowen Craigie, he said, “let the side down”.

“I tasked him with going back and doing a due diligence of our operations in China with Rowen to make sure we were OK,’’ Packer says he told Rankin after the chairman informed him of the arrest of South Korean casino operators in China in 2015.

Rankin was removed by Packer as Crown chairman in early in 2017 in the wake of Crown’s China arrests. But it seems their rough relationship has had a happy ending.

Packer revealed on Tuesday that Rankin called him out of the blue six months ago to talk about an investment he had made with Square Peg principal and SEEK co-founder Paul Bassat.

“He called me and I said well done on X investment. I congratulated him … And we had a talk,’’ he said.

“We didn’t discuss the commission – and that was the last I spoke to him.”

Like polo, with water

With the usual Euro beach bars and sun lounges out of reach for the foreseeable future, it is only fitting that a “Amalfi” beach club, complete with kitted out cabanas, be in the works for Sydney’s own Bondi Beach.

The development plan, a brain child of Polo in the City founder Janek Gazecki and his wife, former ballerina Natalie Decorte, has drawn the ire of some punters, who claim the move, which is sectioning off part of the beach’s south end, is elitist.

Still, our sources say there are plenty willing to throw their support behind the move.

They include kaftan maker Camilla, the brand founded by fellow eastern suburbs local Camilla Franks, who has endorsed the bar proposal – its silk prints likely to be a staple if the new hot spot gets the green light – along with Paspaley executive director Pete Bracher, the third generation of the Darwin pearl dynasty.

In a letter of support, as seen by this column, Bracher – who is also a long-time backer of the Polo in the City franchise alongside naming rights sponsor Land Rover – says he was sceptical of the proposal at first, but that Gazecki’s track record would put him in good stead for the new venture.

Janek Gazecki.

That and partnerships with Bondi restaurants, starting with Maurice Terzini’s Icebergs or Matt Moran’s North Bondi Fish.

Bracher adds that the “event would attract an affluent clientele bringing much-needed support to the area’s retail businesses” If you weren’t getting that idea already, one had only glance at the influencer-dotted guest lists of Gazecki’s previous events – the likes of Bec Judd and former Block contestant Elyse Knowles mixing with the sport’s best.

While the new concept is a marked departure from the mallet-wielding and divot-stopping Gazecki knows best, perhaps the traditional polo foot race could make the jump to the new venture, surely a nod to the nippers flag race could get a few locals on side.

AMP scuffle settled

Scandal-plagued AMP has managed to keep its latest apparent impropriety out of the courts, on Wednesday settling an unfair dismissal case with former head of litigation and general counsel Larissa Baker Cook.

After a rough year, the financial group’s legal team – now led by general counsel David Cullen will no doubt be taking a sigh of relief.

Baker Cook last October lodged a $2.5m damages claim against AMP, claiming she was exposed to hostile behaviour by colleagues, including then supervisor Brian Salter, after bringing the fees for no service issue to their attention pre-royal commission – the same issue that would ultimately cost company leaders Jack Regan, Craig Meller and Catherine Brenner their jobs.

Last week the case hit a stumbling block after access to key documents was denied by Justice Jagot, and on Wednesday, just a month before the trial was to begin, both parties came to a settlement.

Details of the settlement are scant, but no doubt Baker Cook will be seeing a healthy injection into her own eponymous advisory group with David Baker.

As part of the settlement, AMP says Baker Cook’s summary dismissal will be re-characterised as a termination with notice.