Kerry Packer

Kerry Packer was Australia’s richest man, and a media mogul, being the major shareholder of Publishing and Broadcasting Limited which owns Channel Nine television network and pay-tv channels, and Australian Consolidated press which owns 60% of the Australian magazine market.
"Kerry Francis Bullmore Packer" was born on the 17th December 1937. Packer’s youth was lonely and disrupted with a tough upbringing, he has stated "I mean I got a lot of hidings because that's the sort of person I was and the sort of person he (father) was."

He attended boarding school from the age of five, and just a year later contracted an illness called polio myelitis or infantile paralysis. Packer’s condition was very severe which forced him to spend nine months immobilised in an iron lung, an early version of a respirator, which helped him to breathe.

At the age of nine, he returned to boarding school but fell well behind his fellow students. Though he may not have excelled academically Packer’s size and strength helped him with his interests in sport. He finished school when he was 19 and went to work for his father's newspapers. However difficult their relationship, Kerry admired his father and from the start he was a lot like him.

Kerry Packer’s father Sir Frank Packer started the media empire in 1933, with the magazine Women’s Weekly, with great success Sir Frank expanded the business into newspapers like Sydney's Daily Telegraph. Kerry took over the business when Sir Frank died in 1974.

In 1977 the Australian Cricket Board Turned down Packer's offer of $1.5m a year for Test cricket TV rights. Packer responded by signing up 50 of the world's best players, while converting trotting grounds and football ovals to cricket grounds, growing his own pitches in transportable concrete boxes and televising his own versions of Test matches and one-day internationals. Packer eventually won the rights to televised cricket matches attributing his victory a channel 9 commercial featuring the well known anthem C'mon Aussie, C'mon.

A business trait of Packer's is knowing when to buy and sell. In 1987, he sold his two Channel Nine TV stations to Alan Bond for $1billion which made him his first $billion. Three years later, Bond was in financial trouble so Packer bought the stations back for just two hundred and fifty million dollars.

In 1991, he attempted to increase his media empire by buying the Fairfax newspaper group, today often referred to as f2 but members of parliament thought Packer already had too much control over the media, and wanted to limit what he could own.

Packer is involved in a number of other gambling and tourism ventures, notably the Crown Casino in Melbourne. Packer is known to be a gambler betting millions, and high wining nights has been known to tip staff enough to pay off their mortgage.

Today Kerry Packer is estimated to be worth around $2.4 billion and owns Australian Consolidated Press and Publishing and Broadcasting Limited. ACP publishes around 60% of Australia’s most popular magazine’s including the Australian Women's Weekly, Australian Personal Computer, Cleo, and Street Machine, while PBL runs the Channel 9 network and pay-tv channels.

Kerry Packer leaves most of the running of his business to his son, James Packer these days while he enjoys some of his favourite pastimes including polo which he spends three months of every year in England playing and spends millions of dollars on horses, stables and players for his own team.

In 1990, he suffered a heart attack (one of eight) while playing polo which left him literally dead for six minutes until he was revived but time and time again his return to form is amazing.

Kerry Packer passed away on the 26th December, 2005.
                                                                                                               Kerry Packer Biography (Richest Australian)