Packer’s women on both sides of ledger

Illustration: Peter Nicholson.

It’s ups and downs for the women in James Packer’s life.

Packer restruck his deal with sister Gretel just ahead of Christmas, handing her half his 5 per cent stake in $US3.5 billion ($5bn) US real estate play Zillow.

At the time the Packer stake was worth about $225 million, but since then Zillow has slumped 21 per cent taking almost $US1bn off its market value and about $50m off the Packer stake. And now we hear there may be more to the sudden exit of James’ long-serving assistant Jacquie Murray in the new year after two decades.

Murray and her hubbie were apparently enjoying the New Year’s Eve spectacular at Crown Melbourne featuring Packer’s fiancee Mariah Carey, and the complex’s other delights.

Suddenly, about a week, later Murray was gone. We wonder if she inadvertently breached Packer’s new user-pays philosophy, which has seen him sell half of Ellerston to Crown for $60m for use by high-rollers and him demanding a $10m salary.

Hywood digs

Who could conceive Maserati-driving Fairfax boss Greg Hywood would live in an apartment worth a mere $1.4m?

Indeed, we erred. Hywood actually paid $4.1m for his spiffy pad at Hyde Park’s The Residence in a January deal with Metcash director and former Fairfax consultant Patrick Allaway, and his wife Elizabeth.

Ex-UBS banker Allaway runs boutique outfit Saltbush Capital, which has done under-the-radar work for the Fairfax board, with Allaway believed to be close to former chair Roger Corbett.

That leaves Hywood to decide on the future of his humble Heeley Street terrace in Paddington, for which he paid $1.575m in mid 2013.

If he’s selling, we’d expect it to pop up on Fairfax’s Domain, whose boss Antony Catalano is locked in battle in the Federal Court over which online real estate sales vehicle really is the nation’s biggest. That just leaves Hywood’s Bawley Bay holiday house on the NSW south coast, which he owns with ABC journos Barrie Cassidy and Heather Ewart and is a little downmarket of Catalano’s Byron Bay lifestyles of the rich and famous Rae’s On Wategos.

Age gets tanned

Hywood was way too busy yesterday honing his talking points for today’s Fairfax profit presentation to front Melbourne leftie shock jock Jon Faine on ABC radio to discuss the latest editorial changes at the group.

Instead, Hywood sent minion Sean Aylmer to hammer key messages about the abrupt end to Age boss Andrew Holden’s reign into the bearded burbler.

Holden wasn’t allowed to talk, referring Faine to Aylmer, a former spin doctor to The Apprentice’s Mark Bouris. (Holden now knows just how Bouris’s celebrities must feel.)

Dialling into the fiercely parochial Faine from Sydney, Aylmer couldn’t explain Holden’s exit, but knew he wasn’t sacked. Nor could he muster much defence against Faine’s charge that the Age website is “so trashy”. “I don’t think that it’s trashy,” the hapless Aylmer managed.

“It is — it’s full of clickbait, it’s full of showbiz nonsense … stuff that by and large misunderstands who your audience is,” Faine fulminated.

Yesterday Fairfax online hit back at credibility criticisms. “Important,” the headline screamed: “Do not apply fake tan with a paint roller”.

Willcock cashes out

Tabcorp’s David Attenborough will see off his jack-of-all-trades exec Kerry Willcock today after 11 years with the betting shop.

The always immaculately groomed Willcock has broken the news to her milliner that her needs around Spring Racing will be significantly diminished now that she’s out the door as the boss’s legal and regulatory mind.

News of Willcock’s exit came after Austrac alleged multiple breaches by Tabcorp of anti-money laundering laws.

The battle goes to court later this year but Willcock, who was a member of the executive leadership team, won’t be there to see it — or the outcome of its $900m claim against Victoria over a lost licence.

After turning up to Tabcorp board meetings for 11 years she is well placed to be a non-exec director. Or running a gaming regulator: she already knows where the bodies are buried.

Meanwhile, at Woolies’ Big W, new boss and ex-Oroton chief Sally Macdonald has hurled her first handbag, with marketing boss Alison Jones out and back to her native England.

Joining on Monday as “general manager creative” is Ana Maria Escobar, who was head of similar at Oroton under Macdonald.

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