Splitsville for James and Mariah

Mariah Carey and James Packer have reportedly separated. Picture: Getty Images

The Packer camp pulled the shutters yesterday as reports swirled that billionaire gaming mogul James Packer had split with his fiancee of just nine months, songstress Mariah Carey.

Despite a stakeholder contingent comprising former Labor senator Mark Arbib, Arbib’s partner in Labor power-brokering Karl Bitar and Tony Abbott’s former chief of staff Peta Credlin, there was radio silence from Packer Land over whether the whirlwind 15-month romance was officially over.

Mariah Carey and James Packer in Mykonos, Greece. Picture: Mariah Carey/Instagram.

Unofficial word from an insider was that it was splitsville a month ago, around about the time Carey posted shots of the couple on the Greek Island of Mykonos.

For several weeks she has been sporting her $7.5 million engagement rock on her right hand, including at a Halloween costume party that she attended this week with her twins and their father Nick Cannon.

After Packer proposed, traditionalist Carey had been lugging the jewel around on her left hand.

It was the fourth engagement for the late Kerry Packer’s only son, whose fiancees have included models Kate Fischer, Jodhi Meares and Erica Baxter.

Fischer in her settlement with the businessman got a Bondi beachfront apartment, with some concern being expressed this time around that the big-spending Carey will also be looking for a substantial financial farewell from the Crown Resorts majority shareholder.

At last count Packer was Australia’s seventh-richest person, worth an estimated $5 billion, while Carey has been estimated to be worth as much as $US500m ($650m). Forbes reported that last year she earned an estimated $27m, ranking her as one of the highest-paid women in entertainment.

For perspective, Packer scooped up $280m in dividends from Crown last year.

The billionaire continues to also financially back his first wife Meares, to whom he remains close. He has just tipped fresh capital into her The Upside fashion enterprise. His good friend, Hollywood movie producer Arnon Milchan, has also backed the business.

Packer is believed to still be in Los Angeles, where his second wife Baxter lives with their three children from their six-year marriage, Indigo, Jackson and Emmanuelle.

His next scheduled visit to Australia is believed to be December 14 for the opening of Crown’s new hotel in Perth. Carey has a concert scheduled for that night in New York, the last of her “All I Want for Christmas is You” series. Heartbreaking.

Ardent recovery

Chairman Neil Balnaves and the board of entertainment group Ardent Leisure turned up yesterday for one of the most uncomfortable annual meetings in Australian corporate history.

Ardent Leisure outgoing chair Neil Balnaves. Picture: John Appleyard.

The sombre gathering at the Sydney Mint was a bit like a funeral with a PowerPoint presentation. Chief executive Deborah Thomas and her fellow directors wore black. By the end of the morning’s extraordinary proceedings Thomas was fighting back tears.

Almost everyone in the packed room judged it a disaster. The media certainly did.

But over on Dominic Stevens’s stock exchange, Ardent charged ahead. Its shares rebounded 7.5 per cent to close at $2.14, so that Ardent was once again a company valued at more than $1bn.

All up and despite horrific headlines about the four deaths at one of the company’s biggest earners, Ardent stock was off about 15 per cent from before the tragic event of Tuesday afternoon.

Clearly, as Balnaves and Thomas would hope, investors can be very forgiving.

Safety on site

But it’s not as if this is the end of the matter.

Ardent Leisure director and incoming chair George Venardos. Picture: AFP Photo/William West.

The outgoing chair Neil Balnaves — who finishes his 15-year reign on November 6, but will continue to advise the board — said Ardent was holding an internal review into the Dreamworld disaster.

Balnaves also repeated the company’s strong commitment to safety, and said that was overseen by the board’s Safety, Sustainability & Environment Committee.

That board safety committee is chaired by Roger Davis (who is also chair of Bank of Queensland) and includes former controversial Nine chair David Haslingden and IOOF non-executive director George Venardos, who is replacing Balnaves as the chair of Ardent.

That means Venardos will be overseeing Ardent’s internal review, including the assessment of the board’s safety committee — of which he was a member. That’s tangled.

We asked Venardos at yesterday’s gathering how that committee worked and when it last met. He wouldn’t go into much detail, but said it had last gathered a month ago when the board was having a site visit at, of all places, Dreamworld.

All the way with BCA

It seems a full spit and polish is under way at the Business Council of Australia following a turbulent year under chief executive Jennifer Westacott and outgoing chair Catherine Livingstone.

BCA boss Jennifer Westacott. Picture: David Geraghty/The Australian.

A headhunter has been brought on-board to find a heavy-hitting head of government relations for the lobby group, to complement the efforts of communications boss Christine Jackman and the rejigged responsibilities of advocacy director Scott Thompson.

The headhunter is canvassing current and former pollies’ offices for candidates.

Copping a spray

The normally carefully managed media tour of Fortescue Metals Group took an unexpected and watery turn yesterday.

Fortescue chief executive Nev Power.

The assembled media were perched atop one of the miner’s shiploaders at Port Hedland, watching as thousands of tonnes of Fortescue ore was loaded on to a China-bound vessel, when a hose attached to a sink suddenly broke loose.

The resulting jet of water sprayed much of the media pack, but SNL Metals reporter Angie Kean and Bloomberg’s David “The Package” Stringer copped a particular drenching. Fortescue chief executive Nev Power was high and dry, having stayed on the wharf for a TV interview.

We were assured that it was the first incident of its type at the port — and that had nothing to do with the deep cost-cutting by the miner over the past couple of years.

Therapeutic rant

Is Yellow Brick Road executive chairman and Nine personality Mark Bouris OK?

YBR executive chairman and Nine personality Mark Bouris.

His three-page rant delivered to the ASX yesterday titled “Clarification of misrepresentations in media coverage” had many onlookers scratching their heads.

It was a response to a report on the ABC’s The Business and an interview on Richard Glover’s ABC drive show in Sydney which previewed that story. Both ran on Tuesday, the day of YBR’s annual general meeting, which was closed to all but shareholders.

While Bouris’s epic response might have be satisfying to write, it also revealed the boss’s extreme sensitivity to criticism — both of his leadership and the company’s third-party transaction arrangements, much of which flow to members of the Bouris clan.

Proving that perhaps some things shouted into a dictaphone should not be published on the bourse, Yellow Brick Road’s shares yesterday fell 3.3 per cent, with the All Ords index down 1.2 per cent.