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 A$6.5 billion.
Kerry Packer was born on 17 December 1937 in Sydney, Australia. His father was Sir Frank Packer, an Australian media proprietor who controlled Australian Consolidated Press and the Nine Network. His mother, Gretel Bullmore, was the daughter of Herbert Bullmore, the Scottish rugby union player. He had an older brother, Clyde Packer. He took part in various sports at school, including boxing, cricket, and rugby; though he struggled academically, possibly due to undiagnosed dyslexia. On his father's death in 1974, the family estate, valued at $100 million, passed directly to Packer. His father had fallen out with his elder son, Clyde, in 1972.
Packer, through his family company Consolidated Press Holdings, was the major shareholder with a 37% holding in Publishing and Broadcasting Limited (PBL). Until Packer's death PBL owned 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 Crown Casino in Melbourne. The Nine Network and Australian Consolidated Press businesses have since been divested to PBL Media.
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.
Despite Packer's reputation as a good businessman and his profitable investments, he was not 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 noted by internet news outlet Crikey, had Packer's $100 million inheritance had been invested in the Australian sharemarket in September 1974 through a balanced portfolio of the top 200 companies, that portfolio would be worth significantly above $6.9 billion in December 2005, possibly as much as $11 billion.
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."
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 A$100 million. 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, had invested.
Kerry Packer was also one of Australia's largest landholders. In 2003, a deposit of rubies 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.
The Packer family has long been involved in media. Packer's grandfather Robert Clyde Packer owned two Sydney newspapers while his father, Sir Frank Packer, was one of Australia's first media moguls, and Kerry's son, James, was executive chairman of PBL, before resigning in 2008. Sir Frank wanted Kerry to experience work in the newspaper industry from the ground up, so Packer started in the loading dock of the Sydney newspaper The Telegraph, loading papers. He was not originally destined for the role, but in the early 1970s Kerry took the place of the designated successor, his older brother, Clyde, 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.
Commonwealth Broadcasting Corporation
During the 1980s, Packer owned radio stations 2UE and 3AK. He decided to link both stations to form the ill-fated Commonwealth Broadcasting Corporation. With both stations networked, breakfast came from Melbourne's 3AK and everything else from Sydney's 2UE. The format lasted six months in 1986.
In 1987, Packer made a fortune at the expense of disgraced tycoon Alan Bond. He reportedly sold Bond the Nine Network at the record price of A$1.05 billion in 1987, and then bought it back three years later for a mere A$250 million, when Bond's empire was collapsing. Packer later quipped, "You only get one Alan Bond in your lifetime, and I've had mine". Packer was then able to reinvest the proceeds in a 25% share in the Foxtel pay TV consortium.
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.
Packer sometimes took a direct interest in the editorial content of his papers, although he was far less interventionist than the notoriously hands-on Rupert Murdoch. Packer also occasionally interfered directly in the programming of his TV stations; in 1992, he called his Sydney station, TCN-9, and ordered its personnel to "Get that shit off the air!", referring to Australia's Naughtiest Home Videos hosted by Doug Mulray, which was cut during its first and only airing on national television. (It has since aired in its entirety.) He is also said to have often manipulated broadcasts of cricket himself, to ensure that the end of a cricket match was broadcast, despite previously set television broadcast schedules.
Government inquiry and legal challenges