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By The Philippine Center For
Investigative Journalism
(Editor’s note: This following
story is a sidebar to a two-part special report on how allies of the
Palace are linked to Bloombury Investment Ltd., a company that will
invest in “Tourism City” of the Philippine Amusement and Gaming
Corp. or Pagcor.)
The man behind Bloombury
Investment Ltd.’s supposed foreign partner has in recent months
launched aggressive moves to expand his inherited multibillion-dollar
gaming and media empire.
But he has done so at a time when
his rank on the lists of Australia’s richest billionaires has been
sliding steadily.
In 2005, at age 39, James Douglas
Packer became Australia’s richest man after taking a majority
stake in Publishing & Broadcasting Limited (PBL), following the
death of his father, Kerry, in December that year.
Two years hence, Packer has
dropped two slots on the list of Australia’s most affluent. He
turns 41 in September with his estimated wealth down from 7.25
billion Australian dollars (US$6.98 billion) in 2006 to 6.10 billion
Australian dollars (US$5.87 billion) this year, according to BRW
magazine, Australia’s leading business magazine. BRW publishes an
annual list of the 200 wealthiest individuals and families in the
Land Down Under.
Mining magnate Andrew
“Twiggy” Forrest dislodged Packer from the top slot. Forrest’s
record fortune of 9.41 billion Australian dollars (US$9.06 billion)
is said to be the biggest in the 25-year history of BRW’s Rich 200
list.
One Australian paper noted that
it was the first time in 20 years that a Packer did not top the
list.
Packer’s slide in Australia’s
list finds corroboration in Forbes magazine’s world’s
billionaires list. He slid 59 slots down to rank 173rd in March 2008
with a net worth of US$5.7 billion. In the 2006 Forbes list, Packer
placed No. 114, even with a smaller estimated wealth of US$5
billion.
By most media reports, though,
James Packer has been busy changing the course of PBL since 2005.
First, he started spinning off PBL’s major media assets to
concentrate on the more lucrative casino business. Then in May 2007,
he split PBL into two separately listed companies: Crown Ltd. for
its gaming ventures, and Consolidated Media Holdings Inc., (CMHI)
for its media assets. Packer now sits as executive chairman in both
Crown and CMHI.
CMHI includes Australia’s
Channel Nine television network, 60 Australian magazines, and 25
percent of New Regency, a Hollywood cinema and television production
company.
Packer’s effort to slowly
diversify into gaming started in the late ‘90s, after his father
named him PBL chairman. The move boosted PBL’s revenue remarkably,
contributing roughly 40 percent to the company’s coffers.
The family’s fortunes, however,
began in the media industry. Packer’s great-grandfather, Robert
Clyde, owned two Sydney newspapers, which he passed on to son
Frank—Packer’s grandfather. Frank became one of Australia’s
first media tycoons.
When Frank died in 1974, Kerry
Packer assumed control of PBL.
Described as a legendary gambler,
Kerry had nevertheless initially resisted James’ move to acquire
Crown Casino, until the project turned into a financial coup.
Packer’s Crown now has casino and entertainment complexes in
Melbourne and Burswood in Australia, but his gaming empire has also
spread to Macau, Canada, Britain, and the United States.
The young Packer also showed his
mettle in business when he partnered with SEEK Limited,
Australia’s largest website for job seekers, and with Microsoft in
the creation of ninemsn.com.au, Australia’s most visited site. For
these initiatives, Australia’s WealthCreator website extolled
James’s determination to “boldly go where no Packer had gone
before.”
But in May, James Packer gave up
on plans to build the tallest tower in Las Vegas, as part of a
mega-casino and hotel, after failing to secure the funding needed
for the project.
A few years back, he had also
withdrawn from a huge casino project in Singapore, but these days,
he is said to be concentrating on Asia. The Philippines is being
touted as his next overnight cash machine through Bloombury
Investments Ltd., which has proposed to build a US$1.14-billion
entertainment complex, top-billed by a world-class casino facility,
on reclaimed land along Manila Bay. But that is if he can convince
his partner in Crown, Lawrence Ho, to press on with the venture. At
least two associates of Ho say they are “100-percent sure” the
scion of Macau casino king Stanley Ho is not investing in the
Bloombury deal, as he is content with selling gaming machines and
gaming chips to Philippine casino operators.
One of the Ho associates said
“it is very doubtful” that Packer would push through with the
Bloombury project, on account of an agreement with Ho that
“anywhere in Asia they operate, they should operate together.”
Packer has also gone into joint
ventures with long-time buddy and fellow second-generation media
tycoon Lachlan Keith Murdoch, elder son of News Corp.’s Rupert
Murdoch. So far, however, two of their ventures have tanked.
In 2001, their telephony One.Tel
was declared insolvent. The botched project cost PBL and News Corp.
a total of US$1 billion.
Last year, Packer and Murdoch
tried another partnership with a US$2.9-billion buyout offer for
Consolidated Media Holdings, Australia’s No. 2 media group. This
project was dropped in April, reportedly due to some disagreements
over the price. Packer owns 38 percent of the listed firm.
The One.Tel debacle coincided
with the breakup of Packer’s first marriage and reportedly made
him depressed. Actor Tom Cruise, who happens to be Packer’s
friend, then introduced him to Scientology.
In May, though, reports spread
that Packer had stopped taking Scientology courses after being told
the group was taking advantage of his money. Yet other stories said
Packer thought he no longer needed help from the religious group
because he had recovered from his personal and financial woes.
Still, other reports claim Packer
had felt uncomfortable with Scientology’s beliefs that frown upon
gambling. Three decades ago, Scientology founder L. Ron Hubbard had
denounced gambling, saying, “An obsessive gambler is a psychotic,
just like a drug addict or an alcoholic.”
James
Packer, however, is not known to be particularly fond of gambling,
except as a business venture. This, as well as a gentle demeanor,
set him apart from his father Kerry, who was known to be blunt and
had a volcanic temper.
From 1998, when he became
executive chairman of PBL, the younger Packer had positioned himself
as a worthy successor to his father. But while he considered his
father his “mentor, teacher, and greatest fortune,” he had
wanted to make a name for himself.
“I think that if I try and be,
you know, a mini-version of Kerry, that I’m going to fail because
he was such a larger-than-life character,” he said in an interview
conducted after a state memorial service for Kerry Packer in Sydney.
“So I’m going to do my best being myself.”
Sunbeam Corp.’s Albert John
Dunlap, who had earned the moniker “Chainsaw Al” and “Rambo in
Pinstripes” for his boardroom ruthlessness, was also said to be
one of the biggest influences in James Packer’s life.
Dunlap, who had apprenticed under
Kerry Packer, was said to have admonished James at one point: “You
have to determine whether you are a James or a Jamie. If you want to
play polo and take out a different model every night and go skiing,
you can continue to be Jamie. But if you want to learn how to run a
business, you have to become James. And James, I believe you can be
a world-class executive if you want.”
--With Tita C. Valderama
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