Packer, James (1967-…), is an Australian business executive who ranks among the wealthiest people in the world. Packer inherited his family’s multibillion-dollar media empire.
James Douglas Packer was born in Sydney, Australia, on Sept. 8, 1967. His father, Kerry Packer, and grandfather, Sir Frank Packer, built the family’s fortune through media ownership. The family’s media interests included newspapers ; the Nine Network, one of Australia’s leading national television networks; and Australian Consolidated Press (later ACP Magazines), the country’s largest magazine publisher. Nine Network and ACP merged in 1994 to form Publishing & Broadcasting Limited (PBL).
In 1999, PBL, with James Packer as chairman, purchased Australia’s largest casino group, Crown Limited. The casino investments, as well as such ventures as One.Tel, led Packer to experience substantial setbacks in his career, including public failure and financial loss. One.Tel, one of Australia’s largest telecommunications companies, collapsed in 2001. When Kerry Packer died in 2005, 38-year-old James Packer took over the family’s broadcasting and publishing empire. In 2007, he split PBL into two companies: the media group Consolidated Media Holdings Limited and Crown Limited.
Packer sold Consolidated Media to News Corporation in 2012 to focus on casinos. News Corporation is a publishing company founded by the Australian-born businessman Rupert Murdoch . The deal ended the Packer family’s involvement in the media business that stretched back to the early 1920’s.
