Market waits on James Packer’s next move after another asset sell off

Speculation is building that casino and pay television mogul James Packer could be planning to take Crown or Consolidated Media private after selling his family’s stake in Challenger Financial Services for just under $400 million.

It is yet another step in Packer’s big asset sell-off of the last 12 months. As well as selling personal assets including his luxury yacht, Mayfair apartment and polo ponies, Packer has offloaded his family’s rural land holdings for around $400 million, Consolidated Media’s stake in Seek for around $441 million and Consolidated Media’s headquarters for about $50 million.

The sale of the Challenger stake coincided with Packer revealing that Kerry Stokes’ Seven Network has requested a copy of Consolidated Media’s share registry, a move widely seen as a sign that Stokes may launch a takeover for the company.

In July, Stokes built a stake of just under 20% of Consolidated Media in a move widely seen as an attempt to gain an entry into Australia’s pay television industry, as Consolidated Media owns 25% of Foxtel.

But the sale of the Challenger stake means Packer has a big lump of cash to defend any takeover move from Stokes. There is even some speculation that Packer may launch a takeover bid of his own and take Consolidated Media private.

He already owns just over 40% of the company, so a full takeover of Consolidated Media would cost at least $1.3 billion and probably more like $1.5 billion.

Another theory doing the rounds is that Packer could use cash to take Crown private, although this deal would cost Australia’s former richest man around $4 billion. He owns around 36% of Crown, which owns casinos in Australia, North America and the Asian gaming hub of Macau.

While Packer has not made a public comment on how he plans to use his pile of cash, it is now clear that the Packer family’s investment strategy has changed.

While Kerry Packer was always focused on the media sector, he diversified into financial services, chemicals, fashion and agribusiness.

Despite James Packer forays into technology (including the ill-fated OneTel investment and the more successful investment in PC Tools) he has now rationalised the Packer empire completely – there is speculation he will soon sell another of the family’s big private investments, in listed property developer Sunland.

Packer’s empire is now focused almost solely on pay TV and gaming and he’s now in a perfectly cashed-up position to expand into either sector – or both.