How James Packer plans to avoid passing the succession poison chalice to his kids

6 hours ago 5

James Packer isn’t going to anoint a prince and heir to the family throne – signalling the end of four generations of the family dynasty.

The fifth generation of Packers – his three children – will ultimately be bequeathed riches rather than power.

James Packer’s fortune is estimated at $5 billion.

In part, this reflects the fact that despite his immense fortune, said to be valued at more than $5 billion, there is no operating company at the centre of Packer’s empire. The days of Packer dominating the media, and then Australian casinos, have been over for a few years.

It now appears he won’t be using his fortune to buy and operate another company to pass onto the next generation.

James Packer has experienced the generous spoils, but also the pitfalls, of his succession to his late father Kerry’s throne decades ago. He’s also watched at close range other dynastic families, such as the Murdochs, the Pratts and the Rineharts, tear themselves apart as siblings sought to secure power over each other.

Packer’s willingness to publicly discuss his emotional frailties has certainly added to the sense that he has become sufficiently enlightened that he wants to avoid the succession curse for any of his children.

Jackson, 12, mum Erica, Indigo, 13, and Emmanuelle, 9, front right, with a friend, at rear in black.

The Packers had their own scrape with inheritance feuding after James and his sister, Gretel, disagreed about their father’s financial legacy but ultimately settled the dispute and avoided court.

Meanwhile, so sordid and compelling was the Murdoch family’s infighting and Game of Thrones-style rivalry that it was used as the framework for the HBO hit drama series, Succession.

Packer has plenty of perspective of and understanding on what being handed a poison chalice looks like and has first-hand experience of the emotional toll of running a large business and being in the forensic focus of a constant spotlight.

Kerry Packer is met by children James and Gretel at Sydney Airport in 1977.

Eschewing this kind of drama, Packer has divulged in an interview with The West Australian that he will simply pass on his fortune equally between his two currently teenage children and their 12-year-old sibling.

His plan is greatly enabled by the way his fortune is constructed. Most of Packer’s money is invested in shares – largely tech companies that he doesn’t control.

While it has been a lucrative endeavour for Packer, it has also provided him with an opportunity to remain largely under the public radar.

The public inquiries into poor governance of Crown Resorts that uncovered money laundering and relationships with organised crime, for which Packer provided testimony, would have been a particularly bruising experience.

Piecing together public snippets about Packer’s post-Crown investment strategy suggests he has been a significant beneficiary of the relentless charge of AI and has done well from the foray into, for example, Nvidia. It will have been particularly lucrative if he held his nerve in April when the market turned temporarily sour on technology stocks.

James Packer (right) with singer Robbie Williams during a discussion last year about mental health.

The stress of public life and the self-imposed pressure to grow the legacy left by his father was ultimately a curse for the billionaire who has spoken publicly about his mental health issues.

Free from the shackles of the public glare has enabled Packer to spend more cruising the Mediterranean or South Pacific on his super yacht and allowed him to move between his luxury properties in the ski fields of Aspen, Los Angeles, Argentina, Mexico and Sydney.

He told The West Australian: “In regard to what will happen when I’m gone, unlike people like Kerry Stokes or [Canadian tech guru] Daniel Nadler, I inherited my money.

“Whatever difficulties I’ve had in my life, I’m incredibly grateful to my father for being as generous to me as he was.

“And, in that regard … I’m going to leave the majority of my wealth to my kids, just like Dad did with his children.”

Packer told The West Australian that he planned to pass on his business learnings to all three children as they grew older, but would be equally supportive if they chose to devote themselves to philanthropic causes like their mother, Erica, a long-serving ambassador for humanitarian group UNICEF.

It feels like the end of an era.

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