Billionaire legal stoush: inside the Pratt and Waislitz family dramas

Heloise Pratt made the surprise move to take ex-husband Alex Waislitz to court in a battle of billionaires. But behind the scenes are long-standing family tensions and rivalries.

From left: Alex Waislitz, Heloise Pratt, Richard Pratt, Anthony Pratt, Paula Hitchcock.

Billionaire Alex Waislitz was mixing business with pleasure flitting between Europe and the US when his trip came to a shuddering and shocking halt this week.

As first revealed by The Australian, Mr Waislitz was blindsided when it emerged his ex-wife ­Heloise Pratt, scion of one of the wealthiest families in Australia, took the ­thermonuclear option of lodging action in the Supreme Court accusing him of “criminality” and acting “dishonestly”.

The accusations specifically relate to Mr Waislitz allegedly paying himself and his charitable foundation $1.147m in 2017 without Ms Pratt’s knowledge and from their $1.3bn jointly owned Thorney Investments business.

But in reality, and as previously revealed by The Australian’s Margin Call column, it probably relates to Ms Pratt and Mr Waislitz’s ­attempts to negotiate through solicitors over the ownership and control of Thorney. Ms Pratt has sought to finalise the terms of their separation over the past 24 months, but those talks have broken down over the past year.

Suddenly, by the lodging of the Supreme Court action early this week, a spat between two of Australia’s wealthiest individuals, intertwined with an extremely rich family that tries to keep its affairs private, has burst out into the public spotlight.

By Thursday, Mr Waislitz had flown back to Melbourne on his Bombardier Global Express from New York and, judging by his public comments in response to the bombshell lawsuit, was furious.

“It appears to be a highly provocative and unbecoming action in response to failed negotiations which had up until now been kept private,” Mr Waislitz said in a statement. “I will be vigorously defending this inflammatory and damaging claim and will have further to say in coming weeks.”

What comes next could bring long-standing family tensions to the surface.

Ms Pratt is understood to be seeking about $750m from Mr Waislitz and Thorney: the figure is 50 per cent of his valuation on this year’s edition of The List – Australia’s Richest 250, published by The Australian in March.

In response, Mr Waislitz is likely to seek to gain more information about the inner workings of the Pratt family’s Visy cardboard box making and recycling giant. He could seek to test if he has his own claim to part of the Visy fortune.

(Anthony Pratt and the family’s fortune is estimated at $27.66bn, including Pratt Industries.)

Mr Waislitz may also seek to scrutinise related-party transactions between Visy and the Pratt family, in the same way the family has made similar assertions about his dealings with Thorney.

In many ways, this action and the rising tension has been a long time coming and involves a cast of billionaires and family members from the very top of Australian business and society.

Late Visy chairman Richard Pratt left behind a family fortune split amongst three of his children.

Heloise Pratt is the sister of Fiona Geminder and Anthony Pratt, who have taken leadership of the family’s Visy and Pratt Industries since the death of father Richard Pratt in April 2009.

The trio share ownership of Visy, which dominates the Australasian market, while Mr Pratt owns Pratt Industries in the US, to where he recently announced he was moving.

Mrs Geminder is married to billionaire Raphael “Ruffy” ­Geminder, whose main asset is the ASX-listed Pact Group packaging business that was born out of Visy.

Mr Waislitz is a renowned small and mid cap stock investor who has built Thorney and its associated entities into an empire with $1.3bn in net assets on its balance sheet. Thorney was started in 1991, when Mr Waislitz was given a $1.15m parcel of Amcor shares by his late father-in-law. His entities now control more than $2bn in listed stocks.

Raphael Geminder and Fiona Geminder. Picture: Matrixnews

Although they will never admit it publicly, there has always been a competitive rivalry between Mr Pratt, Mr Waislitz and Mr ­Geminder.

That has surfaced from time to time, including a moment several years ago when Pact’s share price was falling when Mr Pratt posted a message on his social media accounts saying: “Never go public.”

His sister Mrs Geminder was said to be unimpressed and is believed to have told her brother words to the effect: “However divided we are in private, united we stand in public.”

Mr Pratt has always held the ultimate power at Visy since his ­father’s death, even though he and his sisters are one-third owners. His imminent full-time move to the US may change the dynamics.

Responsibility from a Pratt family custodian point of view for Visy has more recently fallen to Mrs Geminder, who earlier this year became deputy chairman of Visy to, in a sense, step into Mr Pratt’s local shoes. She is active in the business, especially visiting and walking factory floors as her father long did.

Matriarch Jeanne Pratt has held the family together since her husband Richard’s death in 2009. Picture: Aaron Francis

Mr Geminder has always had a special spot in his heart for ­Heloise Pratt, and his wife and Heloise are close.

The glue long holding the family together since her husband Richard’s death has been matriarch Jeanne Pratt. She has been deeply respected by her children and in-laws, but more recently her ill health has led to her influence diminishing.

A notable absentee

Heloise Pratt and Mr Waislitz married in 1994 and remained on financially amicable terms following their separation in 2015. They have long jointly shared parental responsibility for their three children, Jake, Milly and Joseph.

In more recent years, Mr Waislitz has been a notable absentee from Pratt family functions, though Ms Pratt and the three children always attended.

Mr Waislitz and Ms Pratt are understood to have quietly divorced in the past two years. Ms Pratt has a new partner in former Noiseworks rock star Jon Stevens, and Mr Waislitz is engaged to singer and actor Rebekah Behbahani, with whom he has a child, Storm Behbahani-Waislitz.

Alex Waislitz and fiancee Rebekah Behbahani. Picture: Mark Stewart

Mr Waislitz and Mr Pratt have always shared ownership of Thorney and documents lodged with the corporate regulator show them both being directors and owners of dozens of related companies, some via various entities.

Mr Waislitz has always run Thorney and overseen its stock investments and property other private holdings, and had wanted to maintain the status quo where the company kept operating as it has and he and Ms Pratt shared annual dividends. His argument was their children would inherit the business, so why change existing arrangements.

Ms Pratt instead was pushing for a more formal split of assets, potentially with the emergence of Mr Waislitz’s new fiancee and child in mind.

Mr Waislitz resisted.

And then the pressure was ratcheted up with the lodging of Ms Pratt’s case in the Supreme Court.

She has accused Mr Waislitz of withholding board documents and financial information from her about Thorney, and is also seeking to strip Mr Waislitz of control of their Halex family trust, saying he “acted dishonestly for his own benefit and engaged in criminality” when making the $1.147m payment in 2017.

The claim also seeks numerous documents from Mr Waislitz relating to the management of the trust, and says Mr Pratt and Mrs Geminder are also beneficiaries of the trust via the overall Pratt Family Holdings Trust.

Heloise Pratt and Alex Waislitz are embroiled in a Supreme Court stoush.

Ms Pratt has alleged in the court documents that Mr Waislitz breached the Crimes and Corporations Act, and did not inform her about several appointments to the board of Thorney – including of his brother Avee Waislitz – and other entities, falsified board records, and passed resolutions at board meetings about the flow of dividends she was unaware of.

As part of his response to the case, Mr Waislitz is expected to seek to scrutinise the Pratt family ownership of Visy Group, Australia’s biggest privately owned paper, packaging and recycling company.

Focus on dividends

In particular Mr Waislitz is expected to focus on the magnitude of dividends and other payments his ex-wife is receiving from the business, and how they compare to those received by her siblings.

Any related-party transactions between Visy and the Pratt family could also come under scrutiny.

Any revelations in the court case about Visy’s structure and ­finances will be particularly relevant to another case that has been simultaneously brought by Richard Pratt’s love child Paula Hitchcock, who is arguing in the NSW Supreme Court that she is legally entitled to a slice of the family fortune because she is a child not only of the late billionaire but his wife, Jeanne Pratt.

Ms Hitchcock first launched her bid for a stake in the family trust in 2022, after she was recognised in the late Pratt’s will.

She was left a mansion in the Sydney harbourside suburb of Watsons Bay and a property in rural NSW. She also stood to collect $23m in private shares upon her 21st birthday.

However, during a drawn out pleading dispute, it emerged that Ms Hitchcock received three payments from the Pratt family trust, in 2004, 2007 and 2008.

It is not known how much those payments were worth, but Ms Hitchcock is now claiming this demonstrates she is a beneficiary and should be entitled to the same dividends as her half-siblings.

Richard Pratt’s love child Paula Hitchcock, pictured with husband Nassib Thoumi, is battling her half siblings in the Pratt family in the Supreme Court in Sydney. Picture: Max Mason-Hubers

In October, the Supreme Court of NSW allowed Ms Hitchcock to file an updated claim against the billionaire family, which will ­either appeal or lodge an updated defence.

The next phase of the court case would then move to “discovery”, where Ms Hitchcock’s legal team would seek out documents about the trust – probably y including why a deed of exclusion was entered into and to determine a comparison of distributions received by the siblings.

Meanwhile, Ms Pratt is pushing ahead with her case against Mr Waislitz. “To come forward now with this claim and seek to involve other individuals including my brother Avee is offensive,” Mr Waislitz said.

It is all very un-Pratt like.

But when there are hundreds of millions, and potentially, billions of dollars at stake, tensions are bound to keep rising.

Originally published as Billionaire legal stoush: inside the Pratt and Waislitz family dramas