James Packer plays the offensive card

Australia's richest man put on a rare public display when he faced shareholders yesterday, for the first time, as he put it, "without my father at my side".

"Before we start today," 39-year-old James Packer told the standing-room-only annual meeting of Publishing and Broadcasting Ltd in Sydney yesterday, "I should acknowledge both my debt and my gratitude. I miss him greatly."

But while a son expressed his sadness at his late father's absence, shareholders had no reason to bemoan a new, younger hand on the PBL tiller.

Mr Packer has jumped the gun on looming media changes and has a $4.5 billion cheque, thanks to his initiative, giving him the cash to fund his plans in the international gaming sector.

He has buttered up investors by introducing, albeit low, hurdles on hefty share incentives for the executives who flanked him yesterday, executive deputy chairman Chris Anderson and chief executive John Alexander. PBL shares promptly rose 43 cents to $19.95.

But a slight shade of his late father's temper was evident.

"Stephen, that is close to offensive," said an annoyed Mr Packer in response to a question from shareholder activist Stephen Mayne on his late father's backing of Prime Minister John Howard.

"My father endorsed John Howard because he believed in John Howard, and I think history is going to show that John Howard has been a phenomenally successful Prime Minister," he said.

"The notion that media policy in Australia was agreed by my father and John Howard in back rooms to the benefit of the free-to-air industry is just laughable."

Mr Packer was equally strong in his comments about rival media group John Fairfax Holdings, owner of The Age.

"We have been free under existing laws to buy 15 per cent of Fairfax for the last 20 years and we own no shares in Fairfax," he said. "We keep on saying to people that we have very minimal interest in Fairfax."

He said PBL Media was "not as fascinated with Fairfax as the Fairfax press would lead you to believe. And the Fairfax press seems to interpret our statements as some form of tactic.

"I don't know that we can do anything other than express what our views are, and if people want to interpret those views as something else there's nothing really we can do about that."

Shareholders were also treated to James the Responsive. The meeting went for more than 90 minutes, prompting him to quip: "My dad didn't get this many questions at 10 AGMs."

Then there was James the Humble.

"I think we should have handled that better," he said on the Mark Llewellyn saga, which exposed embarrassing comments by Nine chief Eddie McGuire when the Nine head of news left for rival Seven.

And James the Compassionate. "No, no, I'm not angry," he reassured a nervous female shareholder who asked about a related party deal involving the sale of his private interest in an English casino group to the public company, but who reiterated on several occasions, that she did not want "to make enemies".

As in the past, Mr Packer's family was in the audience - his mother Ros, sister Gretel and girlfriend Erica Baxter.

Copyright © 2024 The Mayne Report. All rights reserved

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