Packer's Lunch: A Rollicking Tale of Swiss Bank Accounts and Money-Making Adventurers in the Roaring '90s

390 Pages·2007·1.16 MB·English

by  Neil Chenoweth

Packer's Lunch Text 29/6/07 11:11 AM Page i
Praise for PPaacckkeerr’’ss LLuunncchh
No one is better placed than Australian Financial Review journalist
Neil Chenoweth to cast a sceptical and observant eye over the Sydney
corporate scene, connecting the dots and, ever so subtly, allowing the
reader to connect even more; [Packer’s Lunch] is an exegesis of major
importance, analysing with equal care power, greed and influence.
Sydney Morning Herald
[Chenoweth] does much more...than simply make sense of the
tangled transactions and furtive finances of his protagonists, the book’s
great achievement being its ability to weave its disparate strands into a
broader narrative that takes in the political and cultural spheres as well
as the corporate. This is a book about the shifting sands of the power
structure within Australian society.
Australian Book Review
Chenoweth has performed for us...a literary pillorying where he,
happy man, gets to throw all the ordure and the rotten vegies. It is deeply
cathartic and satisfying.
Australian Financial Review Magazine
A brilliant exposition of business at the top end of town.
The Launceston Examiner
Packer's Lunch Text 29/6/07 11:11 AM Page ii
Praise for Neil Chenoweth’s RRuuppeerrtt MMuurrddoocchh(2002)
and VViirrttuuaall MMuurrddoocchh(2001)
As the fruit of many years of forensic reporting on Murdoch’s empire,
Rupert Murdoch offers a damning indictment of its subject’s business
practices, cutting through the corporate spin and the secrecy.
New York Times
The book delivers an adrenaline kick roughly equivalent to the thrill of
rifling through Murdoch’s PalmPilot and opening his mail. It’s all here,
every murky deal, every sworn enemy, every shocking lawsuit, every
clever acquisition, every cynical rationlization, every accounting trick,
every family crisis. Conspiracy theorists, beware: Chenoweth could be
addictive.
Columbia Journalism Review
Superb, comprehensive . . . Chenoweth’s book is so overpowering that it
calls into question the dedication of Murdoch’s previous biographers,
notably William Shawcross, whose 1992 book lacked much of the meat
Chenoweth unearthed.
Newsday, New York (Reviewer Jes Ledbetter,
business editor of TIME Europe)
Anyone interested in the power plays, Byzantine manoeuverings,
personal vendettas, macho posturings, and megamedia mergers of the
‘masters of the information revolution’ will be impressed by the author’s
wide-ranging knowledge and deft handling of the mysteries of high
finance.
Washington Times
Who better than a hard-bitten Australian investigative journalist to tell
the story of the Dirty Digger himself? This well-informed account of the
rise and rise of Rupert Murdoch has more dramatic twists than a Jeffrey
Archer novel: it is terrific stuff, with edge-of-the-seat deals, financial
scandals, and colourful bit-part players ranging from Bill Gates to Tony
Blair. Chenoweth not only profiles an extraordinary man, part gambler,
part megalomaniac, but elucidates the key role played by the Murdoch-
owned News Corporation in the global information revolution.
Sunday Telegraph, London
Packer's Lunch Text 29/6/07 11:11 AM Page iii
Neil Chenoweth
PACKER’S
LUNCH
A rollicking tale of Swiss bank accounts and
money-making adventurers in the roaring ’90s
Packer's Lunch Text 29/6/07 11:11 AM Page iv
First published in 2006
This edition published in 2007
Copyright © Neil Chenoweth 2006, 2007
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by
any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording or by any information
storage and retrieval system, without prior permission in writing from the publisher.
The Australian Copyright Act 1968(the Act) allows a maximum of one chapter or 10 per cent
of this book, whichever is the greater, to be photocopied by any educational institution for its
educational purposes provided that the educational institution (or body that administers it)
has given a remuneration notice to Copyright Agency Limited (CAL)
under the Act.
Allen & Unwin
83 Alexander Street
Crows Nest NSW 2065
Australia
Phone: [phone]
Fax: [phone]
Email: [email protected]
Web: www.allenandunwin.com
National Library of Australia
Cataloguing-in-Publication entry:
Chenoweth, Neil.
Packer’s lunch.
Includes index.
ISBN 978 1 74175 323 3 (pbk.).
1. Packer, Kerry, 1937-2005. 2. Kennedy, Trevor.
3. Richardson, Graham, 1949-. 4. Rivkin, Rene, 1944-2005.
5. Capitalism and mass media-Australia. 6. Capitalists and
financiers-Australia-Biography. 7. Stockbrokers-
Australia-Biography. 8. Australia-Economic conditions-
1990-2001. 9. Australia-Economic conditions-2001-.
I. Title.
332.60994
Typeset in 12/15pt Granjon by Midland Typesetters, Australia
Printed and bound in Australia by Griffin Press
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
Packer's Lunch Text 29/6/07 11:11 AM Page v
Contents
Acknowledgements vii
Introduction, November 2003 1
1 Back in the saddle, July–October 1990 11
Part one: The three amigos
2 Mixing with money 27
3 Leaving Albany 41
4 The Olympian, October 1997 53
5 Wrestling with emotion, 1991 62
Part two: Friends of James
6 Vapour trails 81
7 Solid work among the shrubbery, 1992 96
8 Packer’s trifecta, 1992 108
9 The Phantom, 1993 121
Part three: Hot news
10 A very good fire, 1993 141
11 Under The Toaster, 1994 152
Part four: Strange days, Mama
12 Rivkin’s party, 1994 173
13 Under surveillance, 1995 190
14 On the clifftop, 1995 202
Packer's Lunch Text 29/6/07 11:11 AM Page vi
Part five: The rise of the suits
15 The friends of Machiavelli, 1996–97 219
16 The secret pilgrims, 1996–97 233
17 Death by Double Bay, 1998–2000 256
18 A tale of two networks, 1998–99 274
Part six: A change of cutlery
19 To dine for 293
20 Many unhappy discoveries, 2001 300
21 True confessions, 2001–03 320
22 Under the boardwalk, 2004–05 332
Postscript 347
Index 368
Packer's Lunch Text 29/6/07 11:11 AM Page vii
Acknowledgements
This book is a story about networks. Its focus is not the activities
of the Packer family. Rather, it is about the people who from
time to time have managed to find a seat at the Packer table.
Itfollows the varying fortunes of some of these dinner guests.
I am deeply grateful for the assistance and friendship of Shraga
Elam, whose work has had such a dramatic effect on the way
offshore trading is understood in Australia; of Ali Cromie, who
mixes outstanding investigative skills with a rare generosity of spirit;
and Andrew Main, Colleen Ryan and Rosemarie Graffagnini at
the Australian Financial Review.
Deborah Light started me on this book by lending me her copy
of Corporate Cannibals, which I have cunningly managed to avoid
returning. I’m in the debt of my publisher and editor at the AFR,
Michael Gill and Glenn Burge. My thanks also to Tony Byrne,
Richard Coleman, Philip Cornford, Alan Deans, Fiona Buffini,
Angus Grigg, Roger Johnstone, Kate McClymont, Julie Macken,
Karen Maley, Anne Noonan, Bill Pheasant, Jeni Porter, Jimmy
Tsimikas and Brook Turner as well as the many others who spoke
to me off the record.
At Allen &Unwin it was a pleasure to work with Richard
Walsh, Patrick Gallagher and Alex Nahlous. My thanks to my
agent, the estimable John F. Thornton, who, in the event that he
lived in Penzance, would clearly be a pirate. My family has been a
continual support for me, in particular my wife Joëlle.
vii
Packer's Lunch Text 29/6/07 11:11 AM Page viii
For my parents
Joan Brooks the ‘plain-speaking woman’
and Norm Chenoweth, whose Thai name was Dr Loud Laugh.
Packer's Lunch Text 29/6/07 11:11 AM Page ix
Everything about her was at once vigorous and exquisite, at once
strong and fine. He had a confused sense that she must have cost a
great deal to make, that a great many dull and ugly people must, in
some mysterious way, have been sacrificed to make her.
Edith Wharton
The House of Mirth, 1905
Lunch (ln), sb. 1 Obs. exc. Dial. Also 5 lonche. [App. Onomatopoeic.Cf
DUNCH sb.] The sound made by the fall of a soft heavy body...She
heard a lunch, bud she thoht it was th’ childer plaayin’.
OXFORDENGLISHDICTIONARY