What might bring James Packer back to Australia?

Among friends: What might be enough to get James Packer back to Australia? Picture: Michael Kovac/WireImage

Tomorrow’s annual gathering of investors and requisite sticky beaks at the John Alexander-chaired Crown Resorts might not be enough to get James Packer back to Oz, but there’s something else that just might be.

Amid the myriad regulatory investigations honing in on the $8bn-plus gambling group is the NSW regulator’s probe into the now half-completed $1.76bn sale of 19.9 per cent of Crown stock from Packer’s private CPH Crown Holdings to Hong Kong billionaire Lawrence Ho’s Melco Resorts & Entertainment.

The deal was first struck in May, with half the shares transferred to Ho in June, but with the balance of the deal suspended in August until the NSW Independent Liquor and Gaming Authority and regulators in other states complete investigations into the transfer.

The NSW commission has released its terms of reference for the examination, which will be led by former NSW Supreme Court judge Patricia Bergin and supported by top tier law firm Norton Rose Fulbright, but is yet to unveil its timetable.

Crystal clear however, is that the inquiry will take evidence in public, which brings us back to millionaire-at-large Packer.

Margin Call understands that at the highest levels of the listed Crown there’s an expectation that director and boss of Packer’s private CPH Guy Jalland, who brokered the share deal for Packer directly with the Ho camp, will be called to give evidence to the inquiry.

Advice to Crown is it should prepare for its executive chair Alexander to be quizzed at Bergin’s hearings too.

Now anxiety is building internally at the group that Packer himself, estimated by this newspaper’s wealth expert John Stensholt to be worth $4.23 billion, might be required to appear in person for his perspective on the mega deal with his “brother” and former business partner Ho.

Suffice to say, we’d buy tickets for that.