Nick Falloon of Fairfax gets his Alan Bond in Nine deal

Kerry Packer 30 years ago got his one Alan Bond. Now a long-time Packer lieutenant, Nick Falloon, has his one Peter Costello.

Thirty years ago, Kerry Packer got his one Alan Bond. Now one of Packer’s long-time lieutenants, Nick Falloon, has got his one Peter Costello.

Back in the crazy days of the 1980s, Bond made Packer an offer he simply couldn’t refuse — a cool $1 billion in cash for the Nine Network.

That was when a billion really was worth a billion. It was also when Nine was top of the free-to-air TV heap and the networks, and especially Nine, were licences to print money.

That was also when Falloon was Packer’s right-hand money man. Now he’s the chairman of Fairfax and it is more than a tad ironic that it is Nine making and not getting the big offer — which actually got a little bit smaller by the end of trading yesterday.

The Packers, of course, no longer have anything to do with Nine. Less than a year after Kerry’s death in 2005, son James sold it for a cool — heck, a near-freezing — $5.5bn.

He then poured most of that into his dream of building a global gaming empire out of his Crown casino — which, of course, is an entirely other story.

Well, from the day he became chairman of Fairfax in 2015, Falloon has been looking for “his Alan Bond” — someone else in media to merge Fairfax with, or more realistically (and better), to take it over.

He got it yesterday. He didn’t get a big cash offer. Nobody would be that insane. Only $57 million of what Nine is paying to buy Fairfax is cash; the rest is Nine shares.

Before trading opened at the stock exchange yesterday, the offer was theoretically worth $2.1bn to Fairfax shareholders. The formal statement touted the value of the merged two companies would be $4.2bn.

Make that $3.8bn. And falling? When trading opened, Nine shares promptly dropped 10 per cent, slashing both the value of Nine and, of course, what was really being offered to Fairfax shareholders. At that price the combined group would be worth only $3.8bn.

Think about that figure. In 2006 Packer got $5.5bn for Nine on its own. Now Nine and Fairfax are together worth just $3.8bn.

This exactly captures the reality. This is not a two plus two equals five move. It does not create a dynamic 21st century media group.

Brutally, it puts together two 20th century dinosaurs. They each still have to face the individual challenges of, on the one hand, a print media business in the world of digital and, on the other, a TV network in the world of multiple — and seemingly multiplying — alternatives of delivering customised viewer-driven content.

Fairfax journalists should be thankful that Nine has extended Fairfax’s life — it’s not buying it to close it down. At least not yet. But it will want to, it will have to, slash costs. The deal is targeting $50m in “synergies” — cost cuts.

It will need more. It’s a fantasy to believe that putting the two under one roof will cause Nine viewers to start buying Fairfax papers or online Fairfax content. Or equally, that Fairfax readers will switch from their natural home at the ABC to Nine.

The Fairfax journos think their future started yesterday. It really started 20 years ago. It just started to really catch up with them yesterday.