Packer prepares for his post-Crown future after registering $54m loss on falling CPH assets

The billionaire is scouring the world for investment opportunities but is not finding it easy to hold assets that are appreciating in value.

James Packer sold out of Crown this year

James Packer’s multibillion-dollar payday from the sale of his Crown Resorts shares earlier this year has helped offset the falling value of other assets in his private business empire.

The financial accounts of the billionaire’s Consolidated Press Holdings, lodged with the corporate regulator on Wednesday, show a paper loss of about $54m for this year as Mr Packer reshuffles his assets to invest post-Crown.

Mr Packer received about $3.3bn from the sale of his holdings in the casino and resorts giant when it was taken over by private equity firm Blackstone in the last week of the 2022 financial year.

It crystallised much of his paper fortune, which after accounting for tax payments resulting from the Crown share sale, now sits at about $3.83bn on the CPH balance sheet.

CPH paid Mr Packer a $115m dividend for the 2022 financial year.

Crown’s privatisation earlier this year capped a tumultuous period in Mr Packer’s life, including Crown’s run-in with Chinese authorities and then revelations about money laundering in its Australian casinos.

Mr Packer has formed an investment committee at CPH to invest his fortune. Magellan Financial Group co-founder Hamish Douglass sits on the committee alongside longstanding CPH executive Guy Jalland, technology entrepreneur Daniel Nadler and Mr Packer.

Like many other billionaires, Mr Packer has taken a hit on paper this year as many technology stocks and investments around the world decline in value.

Net assets on the CPH balance sheet fell about $170m from $4bn last year.

CPH is said to have about $100m directly invested in venture capital Square Peg Capital and co-invested with the venture capital firm in a range of companies, including Israeli freelance marketplace Fiverr, which has fallen almost 70 per cent in value on the New York Stock Exchange this year but is still trading just above its 2019 float price.

Square Peg has achieved an internal rate of return of 32 per cent over a decade, but this year has cut the value of start-ups such as Canva, which was slashed by 36 per cent in July.

CPH’s accounts lodged with the Australian Securities and Investments Commission are not consolidated, so they do not give a complete picture of Mr Packer’s wealth.

But they do at least provide a snapshot of the large amount of assets under his control and the fluctuations in the value of his holdings each year.

CPH has an interest with Hollywood actor Robert De Niro in a $US250m luxury resort project called Paradise Found Nobu on the Caribbean Island of Barbuda, a share in NRL club South Sydney, and other assets such as property in Mexico and a stake in swimwear business The Upside.