Ever so quietly billionaire Gretel Packer appears to have finally taken total ownership of her family’s luxury Ellerston rural retreat near Scone in the Hunter Valley.
The expansive property was bought by Gretel and James Packer’s late father, businessman Kerry Packer, in 1972 and features one of Australia’s best golf courses, designed by Aussie golfer Greg Norman.
Kerry Packer, who died at the end of 2005, was buried at Ellerston.
The rural estate had been jointly owned by the siblings after a 50 per cent stake that had been sold to Crown Resorts was bought back in 2017 by the brother and sister for a combined $62.5m via separate private companies they owned.
Amid negotiations between the pair over the settlement of their father’s will, Packer agreed that his sister would become the ultimate owner of Ellerston.
“Ellerston is a painful subject for me,” he told journalist Damon Kitney for his October 2018 biography of the billionaire.
“Gretel has exclusive rights to it now and in the future will own it 100 per cent. We have a framework arrangement that spans many years.”
That time now appears to have come, with accounts released this week by James’s wholly-owned Consolidated Press Holdings revealing that in FY23 he sold an entity called CPH (Ellerston Leisure Holdings) Pty Ltd.
It was previously recorded with a fair value of $17.8m.
That entity is now owned by RPSCO Pty Ltd, which belongs to Gretel Packer.
It is not clear whether the $17.8m fair value relates to a 25 per cent or half stake in the Ellerston estate.
A CPH representative did not respond to inquiries.
Rural retreat
Overlooked candidate for the top job at Australia Post, numbers man Rodney Boys has left the building, finishing up last Friday after almost five years at the national postal service.
Boys filled the breach in Post’s salubrious top office for almost a year following the exit of Christine Holgate in 2020 amid the Cartier watch scandal.
But Boys, who hails from Perth, missed out being named permanent CEO of the government enterprise in favour of former Woolworths executive Paul Graham, who started running things in September last year.
After a short stint as part of Graham’s leadership team, Boys’ departure was negotiated. Watch for disclosure of any payout in next year’s Post annual report, as well as news of Boys’ now redundant Melbourne CBD apartment that he purchased for $1.2m while acting as boss.
Margin Call can reveal that taking over as CFO of the loss-making organisation is Michael Bradburn, who starts at the end of this month. He joins from Ausgrid.
Alas that leaves existing deputy Post CFO Silvio Santostefano again the bridesmaid but not the bride – the finance manager was elevated to acting CFO when Boys was acting CEO. Santostefano then became deputy CFO when Boys went back to running the finances.
Once again he will fill the breach as acting CFO before Bradburn can start, but then resume his duties as the new finance chief’s deputy.
A company spokeswoman confirmed Boys was finished and that Post was waiting for Bradburn to start.
The new finance boss will be implementing Graham’s cost-cutting program amid its 2023 $200m loss.
We couldn’t miss Graham’s sledging this week of his Post predecessors – Holgate and before that Ahmed Fahour – for the lavish 19th floor CEO suite they presided over in AP’s soon-to-be former Bourke St offices.
Graham, who is moving everyone out of the CBD to Burnley, said he was “gobsmacked” at the set-up, which he described as “ridiculous”; Graham now sits at a workstation in the open-plan office.
But the thing is Graham, who lives on the ocean in Maroubra, has based himself at Post’s Sydney office, not Melbourne. He just visits when he has something to do there and stays at a hotel across the road.
Hence just needing the hot-desk.
Gone bust
The deep-pocketed investors in little-known bond ETF provider XTB, aka the Australian Corporate Bond Company, aka Global Bond Exchange (GBX) might find Rose Bay’s Catalina or The Boathouse a convenient spot to drown their collective sorrows.
Both establishments are local to most of the grand piles inhabited by your typical shareholders in GBX, which was placed in liquidation recently.
Homes in Rose Bay, Double Bay, Woollahra, Bondi, Manly and Bronte dominate addresses on the GBX shareholder register, with the occasional outlier – take Edwina Jones of Whale Beach with her delightfully named corporate vehicle effutoo.
ETFs are usually duller than an RBA annual report, but clearly running a company that manages bond-backed ETFs posed more than the expected challenges, with the clutch of associated companies going south earlier this month with debts in the range of $8m.
ACBC’s directors are Ian Martin and Joanna McNiven of Elizabeth Bay, who also happen to be the directors of Challis Investment Partners.
Challis head of trading Mark Crowhurst (also Elizabeth Bay) has popped up as a part-owner, with his company Frog Pty Ltd a GBX shareholder.
The MacPhillamy family, including John and Elaine of Rose Bay, are also shareholders in GBX as are Nikki and Peter Bakaric – the prominent cosmetic surgeon – who sold up in Vaucluse last year to head to the warmer climes of Noosa.
High profile film producer Antoinette Albert, who co-produced Strictly Ballroom, is a shareholder, as is millionaire property developer Andrew Richardson and wife Lauren Peters of Bondi. Queenscliff Partners and Atlas Advisors were also involved.
A creditors’ report issued late last month said the companies failed due to inadequate cash flow, limited cash being raised in a preference share offering and withdrawal of financial support from a related entity of one of the directors.
Perhaps next time an investment in actual ETFs might be the go.
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