Kerry Packer

Kerry Francis Bullmore Packer (17 December, 1937 – 26 December, 2005) was an Australian publishing, media and gaming tycoon. In 2004 Business Review Weekly magazine estimated Packer's net worth at AUD$6500 million ($6.5 billion), an increase of $1 billion on the previous year. At the time of his death, Packer was Australia's richest man and one of the most influential.

Business

Packer was the major shareholder in Publishing and Broadcasting Limited (PBL), which owns the Nine television network and Australian Consolidated Press, which produces many of Australia's top-selling magazines. He was involved in a number of other gambling and tourism ventures, notably the Crown Casino in Melbourne.

Packer was widely respected in business circles, courted by politicians on both sides, and there is no doubt that he was one of the most astute businessmen of his time, despite the fact that he was a poor student.

The Packer family's business reputation suffered a blow when One.Tel, a telco which James Packer had invested in, collapsed in 2001.

Kerry Packer was also one of Australia's largest landholders, a fact that contributed in 2003 to a discovery of a deposit of rubies on one of his properties.

The full extent of the Packer "empire" includes magazines and television networks, petrochemicals, heavy engineering, ski resorts, diamond exploration, coalmines, property and casinos.

Media interests

The "Packer Empire"

The Packer family has long been involved in media. Packer's grandfather was an influential publisher, his father, Sir Frank Packer was one of Australia's first media moguls, and his son, James Packer, is Executive Chairman of PBL.

He was not originally destined for the role, but in the early 1970s Kerry took the place of the designated successor, his older brother, the late Clyde Packer, after Clyde fell out with their father, quit PBL and moved to America. Kerry took over the running of PBL in 1974, on the death of his father.

Alan Bond media buyback

In 1987 he made a fortune at the expense of disgraced tycoon Alan Bond, selling Bond the Nine Network at the record price of AU$1 billion in 1987, and then buying it back three years later for a mere AU$250 million, when Bond's empire was collapsing and Packer was then able to re-invest the proceeds in a 25% share in the Foxtel pay TV consortium.

Later, on the subject, he famously said: "An Alan Bond only happens to you once."

Hands on business approach

Packer was known to sometimes take a direct interest in the editorial content of his papers, although he was far less interventionist than the notoriously hands-on Murdoch.

Packer also occasionally interfered directly in the programming of his TV stations, and during the early 1990s he famously called his Sydney station, TCN-9 and ordered that Australia's Naughtiest Home Videos hosted by Doug Mulray be taken off air on national television during its inaugural broadcast.

It was also said that he often manipulated broadcasts of the cricket himself, in order to ensure the end of a cricket match was broadcast, despite previously set television broadcast schedules.

Government inquiry and legal challenges

Packer faced a 1991 Australian government inquiry into the print media industry with some reluctance, but great humour. When asked his name, he replied: "Kerry Francis Bullmore Packer. Reluctantly."

During the inquiry he repeatedly berated the politicians conducting it, and the government. When asked about his company's tax minimisation schemes, he replied: "I minimise my tax. Any Australian who doesn't minimise his tax should have his head read."

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 (aided largely by US TV hits such as Desperate Housewives and Lost) Nine still finished the year the number one network.

Founder of World Series Cricket

Outside Australia, Packer was best known for founding World Series Cricket.

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?"

In 1977 the Nine cricket rights deal led to a confrontation with the cricket authorities, as top players from several countries rushed to join him at the expense of their international sides.

One of the leaders of the "rebellion" was England captain, Tony Greig. Grieg remains a commentator on the Nine Network's payroll.

Packer's aim was to secure broadcasting rights for Australian cricket, and his ploy was largely successful.

Politics

The bellicose and emphatically conservative Packer was long a bogeyman for the political left. One early and unflattering appearance in the Sydney media (recounted by Richard Neville) was in 1962, when his father was trying to take over a small publishing concern, the Anglican Press, run by maverick journalist Francis James.

Angered by James' refusal to sell, Sir Frank sent the burly Kerry (and several friends) over to the Anglican Press offices to "rough up" James and pressure him into selling. They forced their way in and began vandalising the premises, but according to Neville, James was able to barricade himself in his office and call his friend Rupert Murdoch, Packer's rival.

Murdoch quickly despatched his own team of 'heavies', who saw Kerry and friends off the premises and ejected them unceremoniously onto the street. Not surprisingly, next day the Murdoch press had a field day with the news that the son of Australia's biggest media tycoon had been caught brawling in the street.

Like Murdoch, Packer's critics saw 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 minimisation schemes and for the extremely low amounts of company 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 severest legal challenge came in the 1980s with the Costigan Commission alleging (using the codename of "the Goanna") that he was involved in organised crime including tax evasion and drug trafficking. He successfully dismissed the allegations with the assistance of his lawyer, Malcolm Turnbull who later became a prominent politician.

Personal life

His primary schooling suffered greatly when he was stricken with a severe bout of poliomyelitis at age eight, and he was confined to an iron lung for nine months. His father apparently thought little of his son's abilities, once cruelly describing him as "the family idiot", yet Kerry steered PBL to heights far beyond anything his father or brother achieved.

Packer was a keen polo player, a longtime chain smoker, and remained an avid gambler, fabled for his titanic wins and losses. In 1999 it was reported that a three-week losing streak at London casinos cost him almost AU$28 million dollars -- described at the time as the biggest reported gambling loss in British history.

The same report stated that he had once won AU$33 million at the MGM Grand Casino in Las Vegas and that he often won as much as AU$7 million each year during his annual holidays in the UK. Packer is also known for his sometimes volcanic temper, and for his perennial contempt for the media and for journalists.

Failing Health

Packer reportedly suffered as many as eight heart attacks in the years before his death. He underwent heart bypass surgery in New York in 1998. In 1990 he suffered a massive attack while playing polo in Sydney, and was resuscitated after six minutes.

It was not common for an ambulance to have a defibrillator at the time - it was purely by chance that the ambulance which responded to the call had one fitted. After recovering, Packer donated a large sum to the New South Wales Ambulance Service to pay for equipping all NSW ambulances with a portable defibrillator (now colloquially known as Packer Whackers).

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 transplantation.

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.)

Since recovering from the operation, Packer had launched an organ transplant association in memory of cricketer David Hookes.

Death

Kerry Packer died at the age of 68 on Boxing Day, 26th December, 2005 at home in Sydney, Australia with his family.

The death was announced by broadcaster Richard Wilkins, who was hosting the Nine Network's Today program.

Wilkins read a statement from Nine's head of news Tony Ritchie which said: "Mrs Kerry [Roslyn] Packer and her children James and Gretel sadly report the passing last evening of her husband and their father Kerry. He died peacefully at home with his family at his bedside. He will be lovingly remembered and missed enormously. Arrangements for a memorial service will be announced." During the broadcast, Wilkins co-host, presenter Leila McKinnon, who is married to Packer's godson David Gyngell, teared up and began to cry.

National Nine News in Australia will be airing an extended version honoring his life.

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