Read the complete write-up of James Packer net worth, age, girlfriends, wife, ex-wife, children, height, family, parents, businesses as well as other information you need to know.
Introduction
James Packer is an Australian billionaire businessman and investor. Packer is the son of Kerry Packer AC, a media mogul, and his wife, Roslyn Packer AC. He is the grandson of Sir Frank Packer. He inherited control of the family company, Consolidated Press Holdings Limited, as well as investments in Crown Resorts and other companies. He is the former executive chairman of Publishing and Broadcasting Limited (PBL) and Consolidated Media Holdings, which predominantly owned media interests across a range of platforms, and a former executive chairman of Crown Resorts.
Early life
| Name | James Packer |
| Net Worth | $3.9 billion |
| Occupation | Businessman. Investor |
| Height | 1.75m |
| Age | 54 years |
James Douglas Packer was born on September 8, 1967 (age 54 years) in Sydney, Australia. He is the son of philanthropist Roslyn Weedon and media mogul Kerry Packer. His grandfather was the media proprietor Sir Frank Packer. Packer was educated at Cranbrook School in Bellevue Hill, Sydney. After obtaining the Higher School Certificate (HSC) at Cranbrook, he began working at his father’s extensive Newcastle Waters cattle station in the Barkly Tableland of the Northern Territory, where he was a jackeroo. Packer has stated he did not attend university as he “didn’t have the marks”. His mentors, he has said, include his father and corporate executive Albert J. Dunlap.
Career
James Packer is the major shareholder and a director of Crown Resorts Limited, one of Australia’s largest casino groups. In October 2017, Crown’s market capitalization was over A$8 billion. Every year Crown’s Australian resorts attract over 31 million visits. Following the dotcom crash of 2000–2001, Packer acquired stakes in the online classified sites SEEK and Carsales.com, believing that newspaper companies relying heavily on classified advertising were vulnerable to online companies in categories including employment and vehicle listings.
Packer purchased a 25% stake in SEEK for A$33 million in August 2003. He sold most of his stake six years later for A$440 million. At Packer’s urging, the magazine group then controlled by his family, Australian Consolidated Press, acquired a 41% stake in online advertiser Carsales in October 2005. The deal, initially valued at A$100 million, was eventually worth A$462 million to Packer-controlled entities.
In March 2006, Packer began discussing whether to sell Channel Nine and the Australian Consolidated Press magazine group to help fund his move into the international gaming and tourism business. Given changes in media due to the Internet and pay-TV, Packer was concerned about the future of free-to-air television. On 17 October 2006, Packer’s team finalized a deal to sell 50% of the media assets—which also included a 50% stake in web portal Ninemsn and a 51% stake in Carsales—to private equity group CVC Asia Pacific for A$4.5 billion, plus an additional A$1 billion in equity in the new company, which would be called PBL Media.
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In June 2007, Packer sold another 25% share of the joint-venture PBL Media to CVC for $515 million. In October 2008, Packer wrote down his final 25% stake in PBL Media to zero. By the end of 2012, debt from CVC’s acquisition had overwhelmed Channel Nine and US hedge funds ousted CVC, taking complete ownership.
Packer was a director of Australian Telecommunications company One.Tel, which was declared insolvent in May 2001. The collapse of One.Tel cost PBL A$327 million. Packer admitted at a PBL annual general meeting that he had learned “painful lessons” from the collapse of One.Tel. Later at the liquidator’s inquiry over the collapse, he denied that he was apologizing for his own conduct; instead, he claimed, “I was making an apology for accepting the bona fides of Mr. Jodee Rich and the executive directors of One.Tel.”
In April 2014, Lachlan Murdoch and Packer agreed to a A$40 million settlement over the One.Tel failure. The settlement was approved by the Supreme Court of New South Wales on 17 April 2014, with A$14.93 million to be paid by the Packer family’s Consolidated Press Holdings, A$11.77 million to be paid by Packer’s Crown Resorts and A$13.3 million to be paid by News Corp.
James Packer has moved away from the family’s traditional media businesses and focused on creating a worldwide gambling empire: Crown Resorts since his father’s death. Crown Resorts is one of Australia’s largest gambling and resort groups. It has businesses and investments in the integrated resort and casino sectors in Australia and Macau, and wholly owns and operates a high-end casino in London, Crown Aspinall’s.
In October 2017, Crown’s market capitalization was over $8 billion. Crown’s two Australian resorts, Crown Melbourne and Crown Perth, feature over 2,750 hotel rooms, villas, gambling areas, resort pools, spas, restaurants, and retail, convention centres and live entertainment venues. Every year Crown’s Australian resorts and casinos attract over 31 million visits. Over one-third of Crown’s revenue in fiscal 2016 was estimated to be generated from international visitors, mostly from Asia.
Crown announced an investment of over A$4.1 billion between fiscal 2007 and fiscal 2017, to upgrade and open new attractions at its Australian resorts, including the significant development A$2 billion Crown Sydney Hotel Resort which is expected to open in 2020. In 2009, Crown lost US$250 million in failed casino investment company in the US, Fontainebleau Resorts. Crown also paid US$242 million for a stake in Station Casinos which is now considered almost worthless.
As of 30 June 2013, Crown held a 33.7% equity interest in MCE. Crown’s initial investment in Melco Crown Entertainment was US$600 million, and the market cap of Crown’s investment as of 30 October 2013, was US$6.2 billion. At Crown’s annual meeting in October 2013, Packer said “Crown’s investment through our partnership with Melco International Development has now grown to be one of the largest Australian joint-venture partnerships operating inside China”. Crown completed the sell-down of this investment in May 2017.
Betfair Australasia was formed as a 50/50 joint venture between Crown Resorts and Betfair Group plc. In August 2014, Crown Resorts announced it had acquired Betfair Group plc’s 50% equity interest in Betfair Australasia Pty Limited (Betfair Australasia) for consideration of $10 million. James Packer’s ASX-listed Crown Limited acquired a 100% interest in Aspinall’s Club in London in 2011, developed through a joint venture between Crown and Packer’s family friend, Damian Aspinall, the son of John Aspinall. Crown has since rebranded Aspinall’s Club to Crown Aspinall’s.
Together with Damian Aspinall, Packer’s Crown Resorts holds a 50% equity interest in a group of casino complexes in the UK called Aspers, which operate four regional casinos in Newcastle upon Tyne, Stratford, East London, Milton Keynes and Northampton. Packer’s bid for a UK “supercasino” based in Cardiff fell through when only one license was granted, to the northern city of Manchester.
In December 2014, Crown Resorts signed a deal with Matthew Tripp, which gave Crown Resorts control over Tripp’s online betting platform, CrownBet, formerly known as BetEasy. In April 2016 CrownBet pleaded guilty to five counts of breaching laws by publishing illegal betting advertising that offered inducements for NSW residents to gamble. According to the NSW Department of Justice, CrownBet “sought to have the matters finalized without conviction in Downing Centre Local Court ….. but Magistrate Joanne Keogh said convictions were necessary for general deterrence to others in the industry and to protect the vulnerable. CrownBet was convicted of the five offenses and ordered to pay a total of $10,500 in fines and also ordered to pay … legal costs of $10,000.”
James Packer resigned as executive chairman of Crown Resorts on March 21, 2021. On 6 October 2020, Packer appeared before an independent inquiry into the Crown’s suitability to hold casino license in NSW. When questioned over impropriety, illegality and corruption, Packer admitted that while a director of Crown he made “shameful” and “disgraceful” threats against businessman Ben Gray. In February 2021, the inquiry found that Crown was unsuitable to hold a casino license due in part to Packer’s threats to Ben Gray, as well as its “continued commercial relationships with junket operators who had links to Triads and other organized crime groups.”
Packer revealed he has been diagnosed with bipolar disorder while under questioning by the inquiry. In February 2022, The Blackstone Group acquired Crown Resorts for A$8.9 billion (US$6.4 billion). Packer held 36% of Crown Resorts’ stock at the time of the sale.
Other works
James Packer purchased an 18% stake in Network Ten in 2010, quickly offloading half to Lachlan Murdoch. Three months later, after a dispute with Murdoch over a senior management appointment, Packer resigned his Network Ten board seat. There was also speculation that he resigned due to a conflict of interest with his interests in Consolidated Media Holdings. Following the implementation of CBS’s restructure of Network Ten announced in August 2017, Packer will no longer have an interest in Network Ten.
Packer made a reported A$80 million investment in late May 2011 in daily deals sites Scoopon and Catch of the Day through a partnership between his Consolidated Press Holding and several other investors, including Andrew Bassat, a co-founder of Seek.com.au. In December 2012, Packer and producer-filmmaker Brett Ratner formed a joint venture, RatPac Entertainment. The first film financed by RatPac was a major success. Gravity, a space thriller directed by Alfonso Cuaron and starring Sandra Bullock and George Clooney, generated the strongest-ever October opening in the US and took box office receipts of more than US$100 million in its first five days.
He sold his investment in RatPac for an undisclosed amount in April 2017. According to Filmink “Who knows what sort of legacy James Packer is going to leave when he shuffles off this mortal coil, but I maintain the films he helped finance…will stand out among the more positive achievements.” In October 2014, Packer bought out Peter Holmes à Court’s 37.5% share of the ownership of South Sydney Rabbitohs NRL club, becoming Russell Crowe’s partner in the Blackcourt League Investments Pty Limited venture.
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In late 2016, Israeli Police started looking into reports that Packer gave members of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s family gifts and benefits. Packer, who is trying to gain residency in Israel, has taken the first step and registered with Israeli tax authorities. In February 2018, Packer was mentioned in an Israeli Police report recommending the prosecution of Netanyahu on corruption charges for accepting bribes, and acting against the interests of the state of Israel. Packer is mentioned in the report to have provided Netanyahu and his family members with champagne, cigars, jewelry and clothing valued at approximately US$100,000. In May 2019, Packer sold half of his stake in Crown Resorts to Lawrence Ho.
House
James Packer owns residential property in Bondi Beach and in Bellevue Hill, in Sydney’s eastern suburbs. The Packer family also has pastoral property holdings in Scone, called Ellerston Station, and, since 2018, owned by his sister, Gretel. However, Packer was involved in a public physical brawl at Bondi Beach in 2014 with David Gyngell, a long-term friend and head of Channel Nine. Gyngell and Packer were both fined $500 for offensive behaviour over the incident
Wife
James Packer is currently single and not married. However, he has married twice and dated a couple of ladies. Packer and then-girlfriend actress Kate Fischer separated in 1998 after five years together and a two-year engagement. Packer married his wife Jodhi Meares at his home in Bellevue Hill, Sydney in October 1999; the relationship lasted two years, and the couple separated in 2002. Following the breakdown of his first marriage, and the development of a friendship with American actor Tom Cruise, Packer began attending the Church of Scientology in Australia, taking courses in the Church’s Dundas business centre in 2002. He subsequently confirmed his involvement with Scientology, saying he had found it “helpful”. He later distanced himself from the church.
Packer later married his second wife part-time model and singer Erica Baxter, whom he wed in the equivalent of a civil ceremony on 20 June 2007. The wedding was at the Antibes town hall, and the second ceremony took place at Hotel du Cap – Eden Roc in Cap d’Antibes on the French Riviera. Together, Packer and Baxter have three children: daughter Indigo Packer, born 27 July 2008, son Jackson Lloyd Packer, born 1 February 2010, and daughter Emmanuelle Sheelah Packer, born 22 September 2012. According to The Hollywood Reporter, Packer met struggling actress Charlotte Kirk in November 2012 when she was 20 and Packer was 45, and the two embarked on a relationship. In September 2013 James and Erica Packer announced they were separating.
Packer and then-girlfriend American singer-songwriter Mariah Carey became engaged in January 2016, but had broken up by October 2016. At the time it was alleged that the break-up was a result of Carey’s extravagant spending and rows over her reality show Mariah’s World, but Packer later said that the relationship had just been a “mistake” for both sides. In November 2017, Packer paid Carey a multi-million dollar settlement, in response to a lawsuit pursued by Carey citing an “inconvenience fee”. In 2019, James Packer was dating Kylie Lim.
James Packer Net worth
James Packer worth? James Packer net worth is estimated at around $3.9 billion as of 2022. His main source of income is from his career as a businessman and investor. Packer successful career has earned him some luxurious lifestyles and some fancy cars trips. He is one of the richest and influential people in Australia. However, Packer first appeared on various wealth lists in 2006, following the death of his father the previous year and the intergeneration transfer of the bulk of Kerry Packer’s wealth to his son, James.
Packer’s wealth was valued at A$7.25 billion. A television report on 21 June 2007 alleged that Packer had lost in excess of A$1 billion over the previous six months in 2007 due to poor investment decisions and falling profits. The 2008 BRW Rich 200 listed Packer as the third-richest person in Australia with a personal wealth of A$6.1 billion, behind Fortescue Metals Group chief executive Andrew Forrest and Westfield Group’s Frank Lowy. That was the first time in 21 years that a member of the Packer family had not topped the list. According to BRW, Packer’s wealth dipped to an estimated A$3 billion during 2009.
In its 2013 BRW Rich 200 list, Packer was ranked third with his wealth estimated at A$6.0 billion, a boost of A$1.1 billion on the previous year. In the 2014 wealth rankings by BRW, Packer’s wealth was assessed at A$7.19 billion, making him the third-richest Australian. In 2015 BRW Rich 200, Packer’s net worth was assessed at A$6.08 billion, making him the seventh-richest Australian. As of May 2021, Packer’s net worth, according to the Financial Review Rich List, the successor of the BRW Rich 200, was assessed at A$5.72 billion, making him the fifteenth wealthiest Australian.
In January 2009, The Sunday Telegraph reported that due to ongoing financial problems, Packer’s wealth dropped to under A$3 billion; also reporting that Packer listed for sale his Mangusta yacht and delayed the purchase of a Boeing business jet. Yet by mid-2010, it was reported that Packer owned a number of assets including Ellerston Z (a superyacht), Arctic P (a luxury cruise ship and former ice-breaker), a private jet, a 12-seater Sikorsky S-76 helicopter, and a variety of cars.