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

Sydney Morning Herald

6 days ago

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.
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.
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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.
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.
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.
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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.