James Packer, co-chairman of MPEL, plans to see in the Year of the Ox by selling off his family’s Australian cattle ranch holdings. The move is expected to raise around AUD425 million (USD306.2 million).
The Age newspaper in Melbourne says the cash may be used to support other business interests including his gaming holdings in Macau and North America. The prospective buyer for the 16 properties located mainly in the north of Australia is the British private equity firm Terra Firma, reports the paper.
Mr Packer will sell 90 percent of Consolidated Pastoral, Australia’s second-largest cattle owner, to Terra Firma and allow Ken Warriner, a long-time family friend and boss of the cattle empire, to keep his 10 percent holding. In his youth, Mr Packer worked briefly as a ‘jackaroo’ (trainee ranch manager).
Although Mr Packer had the misfortune to buy into the North American casino sector at the very top of the market, his timing looks better with the cattle ranches, as world prices for beef are at record levels.
The Age adds that Mr Packer is also thought to be considering a sell off of the last of his media interests—a 38 per cent stake in Consolidated Media Holdings.
In December Crown announced a AUD300 million equity placement to strengthen its balance sheet to help weather the gambling downturn in the US, Macau and Australia.
