Yacht’s the matter with Packer's boat?
The life of a globetrotting billionaire can present its own champagne problems.
Los Angeles-based gaming mogul James Packer has waited for four years to set sail on his completed, Italian-made gigayacht IJE (named after his children Indigo, Jackson and Emmanuelle).
The Benetti-made 108m vessel, which is believed to have had an initial budget of $150 million, has caused endless headaches for Packer.
Costs have blown out to more than $200 million, the project has experienced significant delays and the tortured construction precipitated a falling out with Packer’s Cranbrook chum and one-time right-hand man Matthew Csidei, who had been overseeing the project (until he was suddenly evicted from the billionaire’s universe).
And now Margin Call has learned of yet another complication.
In March the gigayacht was finally launched into the water from Livorno on the west coast of Tuscany where it was constructed, to allow for sea trials so that it could then be delivered to its owner.
But at the start of June, the flash new Marshall Islands-flagged IJE was returned to its building site. Local fisherman tell us it has been sitting there for almost a fortnight.
Packer’s camp denied there was a delay which could slightly dampen Packer’s European summer plans to float off the likes of St Tropez in style (and take the shine off Packer’s recent success flogging half his Crown share to Lawrence Ho for $1.8 billion).
Before receiving the highly anticipated ship — which over five decks features a cinema, gym, pool, fire pit and eight jet skis — Packer at the end of last year sold his relatively modest 55m boat EJI (his children’s names in the other order) to Russian billionaire Roman Abramovich, who also owns the Premier League’s Chelsea Football Club. Before that, Packer sold what had been his late father Kerry Packer’s icebreaker Arctic P to his billionaire sister Gretel. That storied vessel was last spotted moored off the coast of Spanish party island Ibiza.
All of which has created the extraordinary scenario: the luxury-loving billionaire having to rent this season.
Positions vacant
More news out of Tony Nutt’s star chamber, which is filling the staffing ranks of Scott Morrison’s government.
Margin Call can reveal Gerard McManus has been given the tick by Nutt and the gang to take over as chief of staff to Nationals deputy leader Bridget McKenzie, who is also Minister for Agriculture.
He has replaced Richard Hyett, who we gather has called time on federal politics — at least for a bit.
It’s a return to the wombat trail for McManus, a former Herald Sun journo, who until the May election was a senior adviser to Kelly O’Dwyer.
Before working for O’Dwyer, McManus was a senior media adviser for Barnaby Joyce, which is famous for being a handful of a staffing role.
Team ScoMo hopes that relations between the Liberals and Nationals are less fractious than they were in the 45th parliament.
Some experienced cross-pollinated staff might help. Less interoffice romance wouldn’t hurt either.
Other roles in McKenzie’s office — and across much of the Morrison ministry — could take weeks to fill as many Coalition staffers are still on gardening leave and have not yet decided what to do with their mostly unexpected bright new futures.
Post appointment
After many column inches about departures from Australia Post, some mail travelling in the other direction.
Margin Call has learned Christine Holgate has picked the final member of her executive team: a new corporate services boss to replace Chris Blake, who was one of the flock that migrated to former Australia Post CEO Ahmed Fahour’s new finance shop Latitude.
After many contenders ruled themselves out by setting off to Latitude (and its generous share incentive scheme), expect the new exec to be a fresh face in Australia Post’s yoga-loving, carol-singing, consultant-infested Bourke Street head office.
All going swimmingly
What’s a historic mansion on Sydney Harbour without a swimming pool?
Not a patch on next door if you’re Atlassian billionaire Scott Farquhar, who is forking out to reinstate the swimming pool at his Point Piper estate Elaine, which was previously owned by media royalty John B. Fairfax.
Farquhar, 39 and worth just over $9 billion on The Stensholt List, has been given approval from his local Woollahra Council to spend $170,000 putting a pool on the almost 7000sq m property that runs down to pretty Seven Shillings Beach.
The pool is approved to sit adjacent to the sand at the front corner of the property, whose fence features a gate accessing the shoreline.
Farquhar and the co-founder of tech software business Atlassian, Mike Cannon-Brookes, are on track to become Australia’s two richest individuals. He bought the rundown Elaine in mid-2017 for about $70 million.
Unsurprisingly, Farquhar had no need for any mortgage on the title to assist with the buy.
A little more than one year later Cannon-Brookes handed over more than $100 million for the late Lady Mary Fairfax’s neighbouring mansion Fairwater, which is in better repair than Elaine and already has a pool perched on its expansive grounds nestled on the harbour.
By February this year Cannon-Brookes, who on Monday was opining as a panellist on Tony Jones’ Q&A, had got around to mortgaging Fairwater to Credit Suisse.
Council approval for a new pool at the estate, which was home to members of the Fairfax family for more than 100 years, was first gained by JB Fairfax’s private vehicle Marinya Capital in 2016. Getting it ready in time for summer seems highly ambitious — in other words, a perfect domestic challenge for Farquhar and his venture capitalist wife Kim Jackson.
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