Crown’s James Packer $400m richer by lunchtime, but sliding down Richest 250 list

The all-powerful Packer family was once Australia’s wealthiest — but iron ore barons and tech unicorns have leapt ahead of James.

Crown resorts owner James Packer in Melbourne. Picture: Aaron Francis

James Packer was once Australia’s richest person, and his wealth on paper was up $400m on Monday alone after the Crown Resorts share price shot up on news of a takeover bid.

It remains to be seen whether Packer, who has a 37 per cent stake in Crown, would accept a bid worth $11.85 per share from private equity giant Blackstone.

Packer’s fortune was estimated at $4bn on the 2021 edition of The List – Australia’s Richest 250, published on the weekend.

While it is a whopping number in most people’s eyes, it was only good enough for 18th position on the list – a far cry from when his late father Kerry Packer was long considered the wealthiest person in Australia, a position James would later inherit.

The Packer wealth would now be closer to $4.5bn after news of the takeover bid lobbed, and early indications have it that if Packer would entertain selling out of Crown then he would likely hold out for a higher valuation. That would means his fortune goes up even more.

It would also cap a turnaround from a year ago when his private Consolidated Press Holdings made a $402 million loss in 2020.

To be fair, most of that loss was due to a previous Crown share slump, as the company battled the negative publicity around the NSW investigation into whether it was fit to hold a casino licence and a general downturn in trading conditions at its properties due to COVID-19.

CPH though has a string of other private assets and many of them performed strongly in 2020. including venture capital firm Square Peg Capital with both firms investing in companies such as the New York Stock Exchange-listed ride sharing firm Uber.

CPH is said to have about $100m directly invested in Square Peg and co-invested with the venture capital firm in a range of companies, including Israeli freelance marketplace Fiverr, which has surged almost 20 times in value since listing on the New York Stock Exchange.

But Packer is a long way from the top of the Richest 250 these days. His fortune is more than $30bn less than that of mining magnate Gina Rinehart, and other such as Anthony Pratt, Andrew Forrest and the Atlassian co-founders Scott Farquhar and Mike Cannon-Brookes.

In The List’s 2019 edition, which was topped by Pratt, Packer placed 15th with $4.23bn wealth. Last year, Packer was 16th at $4.25bn.

Packer comes in at number 18 Read 2021’s The List: Australia’s Richest 250

He still has plenty of assets, including mansions in Los Angeles, properties in Mexico and Argentina, and a superyacht.

But as far as being among the top echelons of Australia’s wealthy elite, the glory days are a long way away yet for someone who is still among the biggest names in Australian business.

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