The art of the deal: James Packer; former executive chairman of PBL, Consolidated Media Holdings and Crown Resorts

It was one of the most important deals of James Packer’s life, but the Barangaroo win came at a huge personal cost.

James Packer. Illustration: Johannes Leak.

James Packer was waiting anxiously aboard his luxury cruiser, the Arctic P, moored off Bora Bora in Tahiti on the afternoon of July 4, 2013 when he received a call from Rowen Craigie, the chief executive of his casino company, Crown Resorts.

It was the news Packer had been sweating on – that Crown had been given the green light by the NSW government to proceed to the crucial final stage of approvals for its $2.2 billion Sydney casino resort project at Barangaroo, beating a similar project across Sydney Harbour at Pyrmont Bay proposed by rival Echo Entertainment.

It was one of the most important deals of his life, given that the Packers had tried and failed before to secure a casino licence in Sydney. It is now folklore that during the bidding process for the licence to run the city’s first casino in the early 1990s, the then 26-year-old Packer phoned a NSW minister on behalf of his father to deliver a blunt message. “The old man told me to ring ... This is the message: ‘If we don’t win the casino, you guys are fucked,’” he reportedly said.

But the threat failed. In 1994 the Packers lost the tender to a consortium led by US casino operator Showboat and construction giant Leighton, bidding $80 million less than their rivals. The family subsequently had the opportunity to purchase Showboat but twice pulled out of the deal, in part because of Kerry Packer’s paranoia about the probity process and because he thought Showboat’s casino – located in Pyrmont Bay – was a poor property.

Instead, Kerry always had his eyes on the Barangaroo site, a vision taken up after his passing by his son. But for James Packer, his win at Barangaroo in 2013 was bittersweet. Few knew that his public expressions of glee that day were hiding a deep and growing private anguish.

“I was on the boat in Tahiti watching the announcement on the TV when it came out. I was about to hop on the plane to Israel for the first time, with my marriage falling apart. So there was no party,” he tells me in my biography The Price of Fortune: The untold story of being James Packer.

‘Packer, who had become a regular on Sydney’s Bondi-to-Bronte walk, was looking a million dollars. But inside he felt anything but.’

“On one hand, I feel I am king of the world. On the other hand, my second marriage [to Erica Packer, mother of his three children] is failing.”

Over the previous year, Packer had shed a kilogram a week, the product of a punishing exercise routine at his home gym in Bondi and at the Hyde Park Club below his office in Sydney’s Park Street, as well as gastric lap band surgery at the end of 2011.

His physique had been displayed for the world to see in a front-page splash in Sydney’s The Sunday Telegraph a few months earlier headlined “James, Bondi: Casino Royale with a six-pack”. It carried a stunning photo set up with then editor-in-chief Neil Breen of a super-fit-looking 45-year-old Packer emerging from the Bondi surf channelling heart-throb actor Daniel Craig in the famous scene from the Bond movie Casino Royale.

Packer, who had become a regular on Sydney’s spectacular Bondi-to-Bronte beachside walk, was looking a million dollars. But inside, he felt anything but.

“All wasn’t what it seemed,” he now reveals about that time. “I got a six-pack [a flat, toned abdomen] because I thought to get the CMH deal [the sale of his pay-TV group to News Corporation] done and to get Sydney up; they were both hard and I needed to be at my best. I was very focused on both deals in late 2012-13.

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“I felt good for a time, but apart from that my head was completely muddled. My emotions were absolutely all over the shop. I was taking loads of [prescription] testosterone, which I think arguably cost me my marriage as much as anything else. I was on a diet of testosterone, cigarettes, vodka, lime and soda, and I occasionally would try to eat something.

“That is how I got Sydney and CMH closed. Then I wanted to run away.”

Packer has always been a private person who eschews the spotlight, yet the Crown Sydney project put him at the centre of a media storm that raged for more than a year, creating more stress.

“I did [the Nine Network current affairs program] 60 Minutes in [May] 2012 and [the Seven Network’s rival program] Sunday Night [in February 2013], which killed me more than people realise. I have always wanted to shy away from publicity. For the first time in my life I was front and centre trying to get it.”

‘Broadcaster Alan Jones was one of the few who knew of – and so was deeply concerned about – Packer’s private turmoil.’

His good friend, broadcaster Alan Jones, was one of the few who knew of – and so was deeply concerned about – Packer’s private turmoil at the time.

“Oh yes, of course; Oh God, I thought that often,” he says, adding that he was not surprised at Packer’s marriage break-up after the Crown Sydney success.

“That’s not uncommon. I mean, marriages come together, and then if one of the partners is out there on the big picture and the big project, it is a 24/7 job. And he was at it all the time and absent from the marriage,” Jones acknowledges, adding that it wasn’t the only reason for the break-up.

Packer (who has resigned his Australian directorships and has withdrawn from corporate life) now admits that the Sydney Casino project “took much more out of me than I realised or other people realised”.

“I went public for the first time in my life,” he says. “I’d given interviews in the past but only when forced to. Now I was everywhere, promoting tourism and promoting Crown. I knew I needed to be fit and to look strong, but inside I hated it. I couldn’t walk down the street in Sydney without being recognised.

“All the papers editorialised in favour of a casino without a tender – [The Sydney Morning Herald], [The Australian Financial Review], The Australian and The Telegraph. I knew I had to get to stage three of the unsolicited proposal process and then get out of Sydney. I was desperately unhappy inside.”

The Price of Fortune: The untold story of being James Packer by Damon Kitney (HarperCollins, $45) is out next week.