The Broken Billionaire

In the wake of a devastating breakdown, Ingrid Pyne asks whether James Packer has the strength for another comeback.

Summer on the French Riviera and the serious money has once again arrived in Europe’s playground of the rich and famous. James Packer is here, as he is most years, aboard Mischief, the 52m super yacht he is renting this summer for a cool $400,000 a week. As he awaits delivery of his own new $200 million “gigayacht” – scheduled for August 1 – there is a sense that the tide may be finally turning for the troubled billionaire.

“He’s got a smile on his face more often than he has had for a long, long time,” says a close friend of Packer, who is recovering from his third breakdown in 15 years. “These last few weeks have definitely been a turning point – there is no doubt about it.”

After a tumultuous few years, Packer is slowly getting his personal and professional life in order. Last month he sold a 20 per cent stake in Crown Resorts for $1.8 billion. In December, he got a Cavoodle named Waffle with his long-term girlfriend, the socialite Kylie Lim. And – most significantly – he appears to have made peace with his older sister, Gretel. The pair has been embroiled in a bitter battle over the family fortune, which ended with James reluctantly handing over 100 per cent control of Ellerston, their famed polo estate in the NSW Hunter Valley; the family’s long-time seaside retreat at fashionable Palm Beach; and the Arctic P superyacht, among other assets. But sources close to Packer confirmed that the siblings recently lunched together at Packer’s $80 million Los Angeles mansion, the sprawling former home of Hollywood actor Danny DeVito.