James Packer’s pack slumming it in cheaper digs

Consolidated Press Holdings boss Guy Jalland.

4 min read

8:37PMFebruary 10, 2022.

Updated 9:25PMFebruary 10, 2022

While major Crown Resorts shareholder James Packer awaits delivery of a binding offer from Blackstone for the troubled casino operator, the billionaire’s ever loyal lieutenants have been far from idle.

Margin Call understands Packer’s people have spent January settling into new corporate digs in Sydney after abandoning the flash accommodation that the team had enjoyed on level 39 of Liberty Place for the past five years.

The move, we understand, is all part of Consolidated Press Holdings boss Guy Jalland’s ongoing austerity push at the private group.

The five-year lease in the Castlereagh St building in the centre of the Harbour City, which is home to ANZ’s Sydney headquarters, was signed by former CPH boss Rob Rankin amid his then (but since abandoned) grand plans for Packer’s private empire.

The Packer camp’s shift to more low-key premises in Macquarie House on Macquarie St also comes amid a significant reduction over recent years in the number of CPH staff that the billionaire employs.

Also at play is the impact of the pandemic, which has seen many employees working remotely.

CPH also has a reduced need for office space now that an increasing number of Packer’s key executives, like the billionaire himself, are based offshore.

Jalland lives in Monaco, while Packer has a portfolio of luxury homes around the world, including in the US (where his children live) and Argentina.

Crown is facing an $8.9bn offer from New York-based investment giant Blackstone.

When Packer’s influence at Crown was at its peak, there had been a plan for CPH to move its premises closer to Barangaroo, where Crown Sydney has been developed at a cost of $2.2bn, once the Liberty Place lease expired.

However, the profound change in the relationship between Crown, its regulators and its 36 per cent shareholder Packer meant close corporate proximity was no longer viable or necessary.

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Empty nest

Amid the turmoil that has engulfed Crown Resorts in recent years, its billionaire major shareholder James Packer hasn’t touched down on Australian soil since the start of 2020.

That visit was with partner Kylie Lim by his side and included an inspection of the Crown Sydney construction project.

James Packer on Australian soil in January 2020. Picture: Aaron Francis

Fast forward two years and Packer has now settled on his record-breaking $72.2m purchase of an apartment taking in the 48th and 49th floors of Crown’s One Barangaroo, with Packer’s pad designed by Blainey North.

Records reveal the billionaire, whose wealth was last estimated at $4bn, purchased the prestige real estate via his existing Victoria Fields Pty Ltd corporate vehicle, whose directors comprise former Crown director Mike Johnston and Catherine Davies. Packer himself has not been a director of the company since 2008.

The transfer documents were signed on the private company’s behalf by MinterEllison partner David McElhone.

Packer now has a leasehold on the sky-home that expires 2120.

No mortgage was required for the purchase.

But that’s a lot of money to let sit idle with the front door locked while the businessman lives offshore.

Last October Packer told the Perth royal commission into Crown that he was “not sure yet” whether he’d move into his Crown apartment.

Maybe he can list it on Airbnb?

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Uncertain bid

Meantime, Crown Resorts’ suitor Blackstone has yet to finish the second phase of its due diligence into the casino group’s operations.

So-called phase one of the process was completed by mid-January, when Crown told the market it would recommend a binding $13.10-a-share offer from Blackstone – should one be forthcoming and if no higher bid lobs.

Since then, so-called second phase of Blackstone’s due diligence has been under way, along with negotiations over the terms of an implementation agreement, which are continuing.

But let’s remember that the James Carnegie-led local arm of Blackstone does not have exclusive access to Crown, with former suitors Oaktree and Star Entertainment, and possibly others, still potential bidders.

Blackstone already has 10 per cent of Crown, which it bought from Melco at $8.15 a share in April 2020.

Packer had the year before sold that stake to Melco, led by his friend and former business partner Lawrence Ho, for a much greater $13 a share.

Blackstone’s now $13.10-a-share proposal is worth about $3.2bn to Packer and clears the psychologically important threshold of $13 at which he sold to Ho.

Blackstone, for its part, has created yet another vehicle to facilitate its proposal, SS Silver Finco Pty Ltd, which sits alongside at least three others it has created for the deal.

But the longer any deal takes, the further Crown moves away from the tumult of recent years and in the direction of the casino group’s better prospects for the future under chief Steve McCann and new chair Ziggy Switkowski.

We hear there are some in the Crown camp who think $13.10 might not be enough.

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Differing tastes

Still in the realm of the super rich, it appears that billionaire heiress Heloise Pratt and Boost Juice millionaire Janine Allis can’t quite see eye-to-eye.

At least not when it comes to the highly subjective matter of design.

Interior design to be more accurate.

Mid-last year Pratt threw down $22m (with the assistance of a mortgage to ANZ) to secure Allis and her husband Jeff Allis’s near-new Toorak mansion, located, by the way, diagonally opposite retail billionaire Solly Lew’s home base.

The juice entrepreneurs paid $11m for the block in 2016 and set about building a modern masterpiece with all the bells and whistles.

But eight months on from settlement, Pratt has a major internal renovation up and running on her new buy under the watchful eye of Melbourne-based interior design firm KDPO.

Seems there’s no accounting for taste.