What is James Packer's Net Worth?
James Packer is an Australian businessman who has a net worth of $3.7 billion. He is the son of media mogul Kerry Packer and the grandson of Frank Packer. James Packer is the current head of Consolidated Press Holdings Limited, a media investment company that he inherited from his father. Since he took over the company in 2005, he has shifted its focus to the creation of a gaming and gambling empire. Previously, he served as executive chairman of Publishing and Broadcasting Limited, Consolidated Media Holdings, and Crown Resorts. The lattermost company was taken over by Blackstone in 2022.
Packer is friends with Tom Cruise and for a time was involved with the Church of Scientology in Australia. In January 2016, Packer was briefly engaged to pop singer Mariah Carey.
Early Life
James Packer was born on September 8, 1967 in Sydney, New South Wales, Australia to billionaire media tycoon Kerry Packer and his philanthropist wife Roslyn. His grandfather was Sir Frank Packer. He has an older sister named Gretel. As a youth, James Packer went to Cranbrook School in suburban Sydney. Due to his mediocre grades, he did not attend college. Instead, Packer worked for his father at the Newcastle Waters Station, a stretch of pastoral land with 45,000 cattle in the Barkly Tableland of Australia's Northern Territory. There, he served as a jackeroo.
Career Beginnings in Investing
Following the burst of the dotcom bubble in the early 2000s, Packer purchased stakes in the online classified sites SEEK and Carsales. He believed that newspaper companies depending on classified advertising were especially vulnerable to online companies focused on employment and vehicle listings, among other areas. Packer's strategy paid off, as his $33 million purchase for a 25% stake in SEEK resulted in a profit of over $400 million six years later. Meanwhile, his family's Australian Consolidated Press acquired a 41% stake in Carsales for $100 million, which later became worth $462 million.
Crown Resorts
One of Parker's biggest and most lucrative business ventures has been the Australian gambling and entertainment company Crown Resorts. It was established in 2007 when the Packer family company Publishing and Broadcasting Limited divested its gambling assets. Crown maintains the Australian resorts Crown Melbourne and Crown Perth, which encompass over 2,750 hotel rooms, gambling areas, villas, pools, spas, restaurants, and various entertainment venues. In 2008, the company attempted to enter the gambling market in Las Vegas by purchasing a nearly 20% stake in Fontainebleau Resorts; however, this resulted in a total loss the following year. Further losses came in relation to Gateway Casinos, Station Casinos, and Harrah's Entertainment. More successful was Crown's 2011 acquisition of London's Aspinall Club, and later its 2014 joint venture with Betfair Group. Along with Packer's family friend Damian Aspinall, Crown holds a 50% equity interest in the Aspers casino complexes in the UK.
In March of 2018, Packer stepped down as executive chairman of Crown Resorts. Two-and-a-half years later, he was ordered to appear before an independent inquiry into Crown's suitability to hold a casino license. Responding to questions about the company's impropriety and corruption, Packer conceded that he had made "disgraceful" threats against fellow businessman Ben Gray during his tenure. In early 2021, the independent inquiry determined that Crown was in fact unsuitable to hold a casino license, partly due to Packer's threats against Gray and partly because of the company's commercial relations with junket operators who had ties to organized crime syndicates. Crown Resorts was later taken over by the American investment management company Blackstone in early 2022. For the sale of his shares, which constituted 37% of the company stock, Packer earned $3.36 billion.
Other Ventures
Among his other business ventures, Packer formerly directed the Australian telecommunications company One.Tel, which was partially owned by the Packer family's Consolidated Press Holdings and Publishing and Broadcasting Limited. The venture was ultimately a failure, as One.Tel was declared insolvent in 2001, costing Packer's company $327 million.
For a while, Packer found success with the film production company RatPac Entertainment, which he co-founded in late 2012 with filmmaker Brett Ratner. The company soon formed a joint venture with Dune Entertainment. Subsequently, RatPac-Dune financed its first film, Alfonso Cuarón's Academy Award-winning box-office smash "Gravity." In 2017, Packer sold his RatPac shares for an undisclosed sum.
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Netanyahu Controversy
Packer has been controversial for his relationship with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. In 2016, Israeli Police began an investigation into reports that Packer had bribed the PM's family in order to gain Israeli residency. Allegedly, he gifted Netanyahu and his family around $100,000 in jewelry, champagne, clothing, and cigars.
Philanthropy
As a philanthropist, Packer established the Packer Family Foundation and the Crown Resorts Foundation. Together, the foundations launched a $200 million national philanthropic fund in the summer of 2014. Packer intends the foundations to promote art, culture, and Indigenous education.
Personal Life
From 1993 to 1998, Packer dated model and actress Kate Fischer. The pair got engaged, but broke it off in 1998. The year after that, Packer wed his first wife, model and television personality Jodhi Meares. They divorced in 2002. Later, in 2007, Packer married model and singer Erica Baxter, with whom he had two daughters named Indigo and Emmanuelle and a son named Jackson. The couple divorced in 2013 after it was reported that Packer had been having an extramarital affair with young actress Charlotte Kirk. In 2016, Packer was briefly engaged to singer Mariah Carey.
