Welcome back Saudi, all forgiven; James Packer cuts back in tough times

Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman (left) has been praised by Australian businessman James Packer, claiming there's a 'massive misunderstanding about what's going on in Saudi Arabia". Pictures: File

Davos in the Desert is the name given to Saudi Arabia’s flagship investor conference, a drawcard dear to the heart of Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, and one that’s become a playground of deal-cutting for Russian, Asian and western business leaders.

Held at Ritz-Carlton Hotel in Riyadh, the Future Investment Initiative has returned and appears to have attracted some of the most revered names in international business despite all that ugliness surrounding murdered journalists and the like.

Our interest, however, is in who was in the audience watching and utterly rapt by the spectacle. One name that stands out is Australian billionaire investor James Packer, who’s normally to be found in Israel rather than Saudi Arabia whenever he’s laying over in the Middle East.

“I haven’t had this much fun and been this stimulated since the first time I went to Israel,” he told Margin Call.

“The best panel I saw had (JPMorgan chief executive) Jamie Dimon, (Bridgewater Associates founder) Ray Dalio, (Goldman Sachs boss) David Solomon and (Blackstone CEO) Steve Schwarzman all on the one panel at the same time. Crazy.”

But in a series of additional remarks that might cause some to bristle, Packer spoke effusively of the desert kingdom and its day-to-day ruler, whose relations were badly damaged with some Western nations following the 2018 murder of dissident journalist Jamal Khashoggi, who was killed by Saudi operatives.

Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi.

“What’s happening over here is fascinating. MBS deserves a lot of credit for the good things he’s doing,” Packer said, referring to the crown prince. “There’s a massive misunderstanding about what’s going on in Saudi.”

The cooling of relations between Saudi Arabia and the US reached its nadir in 2018, resulting in a number of Western executives eschewing the FII conference, among them Dimon and Schwarzman. Apparently they’ve put all of that behind them.

Meanwhile, the matter of Khashoggi is hardly dealt with. Apparently it was raised with MBS in July during a meeting with US President Joe Biden. And it was Biden who swore that he would treat Saudi Arabia as a “pariah” during his time on the campaign trail and whose administration later released an unclassified intelligence report naming Prince Mohammed as having ordered the slaying.

In any case, it seems uncontroversial to assume that Packer’s presence and interest in the country could lead to further investments. He does, after all, have quite a bit of spending power at the moment courtesy of the sale to Blackstone of his stake in Crown Resorts.

But from what we hear there’s an even greater intention afoot to start revisiting Israel once the trial of his close pal Benjamin Netanyahu – on charges of breach of trust, bribery and fraud – is put to bed.

It’s all a bit hot at the moment to even try, given that Packer was caught up in the fiasco. A Jerusalem court has already heard the Australian magnate bought cigars and champagne for Bibi at a value of $101,073 – all gifts, the former PM insists, that were provided out of friendship.

Leave it to the people to decide, of course. Not the jury; we’re referring to an election being held over in the Holy Land next week, with Netanyahu a possibility for resurrection.

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Packer cuts back

But while we’re on the subject, if Packer wants to make a quick dash to Tel Aviv, or Riyadh, it seems that he’ll have to charter a private jet to take him there after recently giving himself a haircut on travel expenditure.

James Packer. Picture: Aaron Francis

The belt-tightening – yes, even billionaires have to do it from time to time – has resulted in Packer offloading his private jet to a mystery buyer, whose identity we weren’t able to establish. The reason? When Margin Call approached Packer for confirmation the answer was plain enough.

“Trying to get my costs down,” he said. The cost of jet fuel really ain’t what it used to be.

Apparently the plan now is to use VistaJet charter flights to tool around instead of capering about on the old Bombardier BD-700 Global Express, which was bought by whomever it was using a custodian trust.

Certainly a surprising decision given Packer has just pocketed $3.4bn from the sale of his 37 per cent stake in Crown Resorts. That said, we reported not long ago that his $250m gigayacht, I.J.E, had also been up for sale (and since withdrawn from the market).

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Coalition snubbed

A bold move by the Coalition to hold its budget-in-reply dinner at the same venue as the Labor government, just two nights apart, making it very easy to tell a tale of two guest-lists.

We thought Labor’s event, held at the National Arboretum on Tuesday evening, certainly lacked the usual frisson of celebrity sightings but there were at least a few CEOs in attendance. Thursday night’s turnout, by comparison, was far sadder, according to our spies in the vicinity.

No sign of a single bank boss after our sighting of NAB chief Ross McEwan at the government’s event. In fact, very little crossover between the two functions at all, it seems, with the latter more a jumble of local councillors, mid-tier advisers, Liberal loyalists and other pale-faced devotees of Thatcherism.

Among the brighter sparks was PremierState lobbyist Michael Photios, of course. David Gazard of government relations outfit DPG Advisory turned up but no sign of his recent hire, Ben Oquist, formerly the executive director of the left-leaning Australia Institute.

Slim pickings from there, except for maybe Luke Palmerlee, a managing director at PwC, and Darren de Bortoli, the MD of de Bortoli Wines.

“It’s a big ask to attend an off-cycle budget reply five months into the new parliament,” one observer noted. We think that’s fair.

The only sprinkle of glam appears to have been provided by former television personality Anne Fulwood, while the food looked pretty grim for the table-wide price tag of $8000. Our sympathies to anyone who was served that fist-sized pie dumped on an enormous plate with the baby’s smear accompaniment.