Kerry Packer

Kerry Francis Bullmore Packer (17 December 1937 – 26 December 2005) was an Australian media magnate, widely regarded as one of the country's most influential media figures of the 1900s. His family's company held a controlling stake in the Nine Network and the publishing firm Australian Consolidated Press, which later combined to create Publishing and Broadcasting Limited (PBL). Internationally, he was most famous for launching World Series Cricket. By the time he died, he was Australia's wealthiest and most powerful man. In 2004, *Business Review Weekly* put his net worth at A$6.5 billion.

Packer was born in Sydney on 17 December 1937. His father, Sir Frank Packer, ran Australian Consolidated Press and the Nine Network; his mother, Gretel Bullmore, was the daughter of Scottish rugby player Herbert Bullmore. He had an older brother, Clyde. At school, he played boxing, cricket, and rugby, but struggled academically, possibly due to undiagnosed dyslexia. When his father died in 1974, the family estate—valued at $100 million—went directly to Kerry. Sir Frank had fallen out with Clyde in 1972.

Through his family holding company, Consolidated Press Holdings, Packer owned 37% of PBL. Until his death, PBL controlled the Nine television network and Australian Consolidated Press, which published many of Australia's top-selling magazines. He also had interests in gambling and tourism, most notably Melbourne's Crown Casino. After his death, the Nine Network and magazine businesses were sold off to PBL Media. Though he had been a poor student, Packer was widely respected in business and courted by politicians from both major parties, seen as one of the sharpest businessmen of his era.

However, Packer was not self-made. His grandfather, Robert Clyde Packer, and father, Sir Frank, had built the media empire over decades. According to the news site Crikey, if Packer had simply invested his $100 million inheritance in a balanced portfolio of Australia's top 200 companies in September 1974, it would have been worth between $6.9 billion and $11 billion by December 2005. Packer famously sold the Nine Network to Alan Bond in 1987 for $1.2 billion, then bought it back in 1990 for just $250 million. As the *Sydney Morning Herald* noted, that deal became legendary in Australian television. Packer was not his father's first choice to run the business; Sir Frank had intended Clyde to take over, but Clyde left Australia after falling out with their father in the early 1970s.

Packer's independent business career began in 1974 when he inherited control of the family's PBL stake, worth A$100 million. His main Australian investments—television and casinos—were heavily shielded from competition by government regulations that Packer and his staff worked hard to maintain. The family's reputation took a hit after the 2001 collapse of One.Tel, a phone company in which his son James had invested. Packer was also one of Australia's largest landowners; in 2003, a ruby deposit was found on one of his properties. His empire spanned magazines, TV networks, telecommunications, petrochemicals, heavy engineering, a 75% stake in the Perisher Blue ski resort, diamond exploration, coal mines, property, a share in Foxtel cable TV, and casino investments in Australia and overseas.

The Packer family had been in media for generations. Packer's grandfather owned two Sydney newspapers; his father was an early media mogul; and his son James later became executive chairman of PBL before resigning in 2008. Sir Frank made Kerry start at the bottom, loading papers in the dock of the Sydney newspaper *The Telegraph*. Kerry only took over after Clyde fell out with their father, quit PBL, and moved to America. In the 1980s, Packer owned radio stations 2UE and 3AK, linking them into the short-lived Commonwealth Broadcasting Corporation, which lasted just six months in 1986. After selling Nine to Alan Bond in 1987 for a record A$1.05 billion, Packer bought it back for A$250 million when Bond's empire collapsed. He later joked, "You only get one Alan Bond in your lifetime, and I've had mine." He then used the proceeds to buy a 25% stake in the Foxtel pay TV consortium. Packer said he regretted selling Nine and wished he hadn't done it.