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Kerry Francis Bullmore Packer (17 December 1937 – 26 December 2005) was an Australian media tycoon, and was considered one of Australia's most powerful media proprietors of the twentieth century. The Packer family company owned a controlling interest in both the Nine Network and the publishing company Australian Consolidated Press, which were later merged to form Publishing and Broadcasting Limited (PBL). Outside Australia, Packer was best known for founding World Series Cricket. At the time of his death, he was the richest and one of the most influential men in Australia. In 2004, Business Review Weekly magazine estimated Packer's net worth at .
Packer was widely respected in business circles, courted by politicians on both sides, and was widely regarded as one of the most astute businessmen of his time, despite having been a poor student.
Although Packer's reputation as an astute businessman was legendary and he made some good investments, he was by no means a self-made man—his grandfather, Robert Clyde Packer, and his father, Sir Frank Packer, had built up the media empire and its related holdings over many decades. As pointed out by internet news outlet Crikey, if $100 million had been invested in the Australian sharemarket in September 1974 through a balanced portfolio of the top 200 companies, that portfolio would be worth a lot more than $6.9 billion in December 2005, possibly as much as $11 billion."How good a businessman was Packer", Crikey, 9 January 2006 http://www.crikey.com.au/articles/2006/01/09-1554-6139.htm
Packer controlled Nine Network and Nine's Wide World of Sports in the 1980s, and "famously sold the network to Alan Bond and then bought it back three years later for less than a quarter of the price." Writes the Sydney Morning Herald, "Packer's decision to sell Nine to Bond in 1987 for $1.2 billion - before buying back the network in 1990 for $250 million - is legendary in Australian television."Barrett, Chris (13 April 2018), "'No crying in television': Packer would be pragmatic about switch", The Sydney Morning Herald.
Moreover, Packer was not the first choice to take over the running of the family's business empire—his father had intended that Kerry's elder brother, Clyde Packer, would take over the company, but Clyde fell out with his father in the early 1970s and left Australia permanently.
Kerry Packer's independent business life began after his father's death in 1974 when he inherited control of the family's controlling share in PBL, valued at . Further, his principal Australian investments in television and casinos were highly protected from competition by government regulation which Packer and his employees worked very hard to have maintained.
The Packer family's business reputation suffered a blow following the 2001 collapse of One.Tel, a telephone company in which his son, James Packer, had invested.
Kerry Packer was also one of Australia's largest landholders. In 2003, a deposit of ruby was discovered on one of his properties.
The Packer media empire included magazines, television networks, telecommunications, petrochemicals, heavy engineering, a 75% stake in the Perisher Blue ski resort, diamond exploration, coal mines and property, a share in the Foxtel cable TV network, and investments in the lucrative casino business in Australia and overseas.
After the sale to Bond, Packer said that he had regretted the decision to sell Nine and wished he had not gone through with the transaction. At the 2006 PBL AGM, Kerry's son, James, told of the true complexities of the deal. Kerry Packer received A$800 million in cash, with A$250 million left in Bond Media as subordinated debt. As Bond went under, Packer converted the subordinated debt into a 37% stake in Bond Media. About A$500 million of debt remained in Bond Media. Packer received $800 million in cash before receiving a free 37% equity stake that put a debt-included value of A$500 million on the Nine Network, which by then included Channel Nine in Brisbane.
At the time of his death, the Nine Network was the jewel in the PBL crown. Although it had a tough year in 2005 against rival Seven Network (which was aided largely by US TV hits such as Desperate Housewives and Lost), Nine still finished the year as the number-one network.
One of the leaders of the "rebellion" was England captain Tony Greig, who remained a commentator on the Nine Network's payroll until his death in December 2012. Packer's aim was to secure broadcasting rights for Australian cricket, and he was largely successful. In the 1970s the global cricket establishment fiercely opposed Packer in the courts. To counter the establishment, Packer hired the ten best Queen's Counsels in the UK and put them on retainers, stipulating that they were not to take on any additional work during the court case (the sole purpose of which was to deny the establishment the best legal minds to prosecute their case) . When he died he was mourned with a minute's silence at the MCG as one of the most influential figures in the history of the sport.
Packer was famously quoted from a 1976 meeting with the Australian Cricket Board, with whom he met to negotiate the rights to televise cricket. According to witnesses, he said: "There is a little bit of the whore in all of us, gentlemen. What is your price?"
Like Murdoch, Packer's critics saw his ever-expanding cross-media holdings as a potential threat to media diversity and freedom of speech. He also repeatedly came under fire for his companies' alleged involvement in Tax evasion and for the extremely low amounts of Corporate tax that his corporations are reported to have paid over the years. He fought repeated battles with the Australian Taxation Office over his corporate taxes.
His most severe legal challenge came in 1984 with the Costigan Commission alleging (using the codename of "the squirrel", renamed "the Goanna" in media reports) that he was involved in tax evasion and Organized crime, including drug trafficking. He successfully counter-attacked the commission with the assistance of his counsel Malcolm Turnbull. In 1987, the charges were formally dismissed by Attorney-General Lionel Bowen. Mystery surrounded Packer's receipt of a "loan" of A$225,000 in cash from Brian Ray, a bankrupt Queensland businessman. When questioned about this transaction at the Costigan Royal Commission, Packer said "...I like cash. I have a squirrel mentality. I like to keep money in cash. It is by no means the most cash I ever had in my life."
Notwithstanding the significant efforts made to preserve his security and privacy, Packer suffered two mysterious break-ins at his companies' headquarters in Park Street, Sydney:
Packer broke the sports boycott of apartheid South Africa which prevented South African sportsmen from representing their country when he recruited a number of South African cricketers to play on his World Series Cricket Team. His timing was criticised, coming just months after the Soweto riots and the death of Steve Biko, murdered by the members of the South African security forces.
Packer's grandfather Herbert Bullmore represented the Scotland national rugby union team in an international match against Ireland in Dublin in 1902 and worked as a doctor in Sydney for many years.
Kerry Packer and his wife of 42 years, Roslyn Packer ( nee Weedon), had two children: a daughter, Gretel Packer, and a son, James. At the time of Packer's death, he and Ros had two grandchildren: Francesca then 10, and Ben, then 7, from Gretel's first marriage to British financier Nick Barham,Davies, Lisa (28 December 2005), "A grieving Gretel gets ready for birth", News.com.au. and Gretel and her husband Shane Murray were expecting their first child together, William (born 2006). Gretel and Shane married just before Packer's death.
Packer conducted extra-marital affairs with a number of women including the model Carol Lopes, who reportedly committed suicide after being shunned by Packer; publisher and former ConPress employee Ita Buttrose and Julie Trethowan, his long-time mistress and manager (from 1983) of the Packer-owned Sydney city health and fitness club, the Hyde Park Club. After his death, The Sydney Morning Herald reported that from about 1995, Packer transferred control of multimillion-dollar Sydney real estate holdings to Trethowan.
In June 2009, the Sydney Morning Herald reported that former federal opposition leader and future Australian Prime Minister, Malcolm Turnbull, a former legal adviser and business associate of Packer, revealed to journalist Annabel Crabb that Packer had threatened to have him killed when they fell out over their 1991 attempt to take over the Fairfax newspaper group through their Tourang consortium. Packer reportedly made the threat after Turnbull told Packer he was going to have him thrown out of the consortium by revealing Packer's intention to play an interventionist role in the newspaper group.
Packer was a supporter of South Sydney Rabbitohs in the National Rugby League competition.
He was an advocate of the Australian Republic Movement.
Once he won A$33 million at the MGM Grand Casino in Las Vegas, and he often won as much as A$7 million each year during his annual holidays in the UK. Packer's visits were a risky affair for the casinos, as his wins and losses could make quite a difference to the finances of even bigger casinos. Packer was also known for his sometimes volcanic temper—and for his perennial contempt for journalists who sought to question his activities.
Packer is quoted for an exchange in a poker tournament at the Stratosphere Casino, where a Texas oil investor was attempting to engage him in a game of poker. Upon the Texan saying "I'm worth $60 million!", Packer apparently pulled out a coin and asked nonchalantly, "heads or tails?", referring to an A$120 million wager (according to Bob Stupak's biography). Some variations of the story put the sum at A$60 million to A$100 million and say the line was "I'll toss you for it".
In the late 1990s, he walked into a major London casino and played £15 million on four roulette tables on his own and lost it all. This has been confirmed by casino owners in South East England.
Former PGA professional John Daly said on the Full Send Podcast that Packer closed down the Desert Inn (which was replaced by the Wynn Hotel) by winning 52 million dollars in one day and insisting they pay him in cash, as the previous day when he lost 8.2 million dollars they insisted he pay them in cash.
The Ritz Hotel in London even had its own room for Kerry Packer. There he was able to play blackjack with a minimum bet of £10,000 per hand. He once lost more than £19 million in this room.
After recovering, Packer donated a large sum to the Ambulance Service of New South Wales to pay for equipping all NSW ambulances with a portable defibrillator (colloquially known as "Packer Whackers"). He told Nick Greiner "I'll go you 50/50", and the NSW State government paid the other half of the cost. He is reported to have said, "Son, I've been to the other side, and let me tell you, there's nothing there." Obituary: Kerry Packer The Guardian. Retrieved on 2018-04-27. And in a press conference, "...there's no one waiting there for you, there's no one to judge you, so you can do what you bloody well like".Carbone, Suzanne, and Lawrence Money (31 August 2009), "Hold on, Kerry. It seems there is something there", Theage.com.au. . Retrieved 20 August 2013.
He also suffered from a chronic kidney condition for many years, and in 2000, he made headlines when his long-serving helicopter pilot, Nick Ross, donated one of his own kidneys to Packer for Organ transplant. The story of the transplant was covered in detail by the Australian TV documentary program Australian Story, a rare occasion on which Packer granted a media interview (and, to the surprise of many, not to his own network; Australian Story is produced by the public network, ABC). After recovering from the operation, Packer launched an organ transplant association in memory of cricketer David Hookes.
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