Packer shows modesty at Seek
January 18, 2008
This Mathew Charles story appeared in The Herald Sun on November 10, 2005, after Seek.com AGM.
A RELAXED James Packer told shareholders at Seek.com's maiden annual meeting he honestly believed he was the wrong man to take the chairmanship.
The surprising remark was one of a series of quips and self-deprecating remarks the media scion made to the small gathering at Melbourne's Stanford Plaza yesterday.
Mr Packer – who is also executive chairman of major shareholder Publishing & Broadcasting – said he didn't seek the chairmanship.
"To be honest I am not sure I am the most appropriate person to take it on,'' he said.
"It was a real thrill for me to be asked and I wouldn't have done it if I wasn't sure the other directors were able to do 150 per cent of the work.''
His remarks were made as part of an exchange with shareholder activist Stephen Mayne, who also said he was worried about Mr Packer's workload.
Mr Packer said he had been "pleasantly surprised'' during PBL's recent annual meeting to discover Mr Mayne was absent.
Mr Mayne congratulated him for "a good answer'' after answering a question on what protocols existed to avoid conflicts of interest when PBL and Seek's business interests potentially overlapped.
Seek's chief executive Paul Bassat said the company's stellar growth was set to exceed prospectus forecasts.
He said there was a structural shift in the Australian classifieds market that has seen print advertisements migrate online with increasing speed.
In addition, some areas of the market, such as health and bluecollar jobs, had low penetration rates while geographically, Perth and Adelaide lagged Melbourne and Sydney.
Over the past year overall online volumes in Australia grew more than 31 per cent compared with a 6.4 per cent decline in print.
However, he said the Australian market was about 18 months behind the US, where 22 per cent of classifieds are online compared with 15 per cent in Australia.
Mr Bassat said a 22 per cent penetration rate in Australia would see a 50 per cent lift to Seek's revenues.
Seek's share price yesterday declined 1 to $2.82 on a weaker day for the market.
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