SYDNEY, Dec 27: Kerry Packer, Australia’s richest man whose fierce business reputation dominated corporate Australia and whose companies control one of the nation’s major media groups, died in his sleep on Monday night, his family said. Kerry Packer’s Channel Nine television station in Sydney said his wife Roslyn had issued a statement saying the 68-year-old billionaire died peacefully at home in his bed.
“Mrs Kerry Packer and her children James and Gretel sadly report the passing last evening of her husband and their father Kerry,” said the statement issued on Tuesday.
“He died peacefully at home with his family at his bedside. He will be lovingly remembered and missed enormously.”
The statement did not give a cause of death. Packer, with an estimated wealth of A$6.9 billion ($5.0 billion), was 68.
Packer owned about 30 per cent of Publishing & Broadcast-ing Ltd, which operates Australia’s Channel Nine television network, publishes a swag of magazines, and has interests in Australian casinos.
In 1990 Packer suffered a heart attack while playing polo in Sydney and was clinically dead for eight minutes until emergency medical officers revived him by electric shock treatment.
“The good news is there’s no devil. The bad news is there’s no heaven. There’s nothing,” Packer said after the incident.
At a height of 1.9 metres, Packer’s bulky physique helped make him one of Australia’s most recognizable and feared public figures. But health problems dogged Packer for many years, seeing him undergo heart surgery and a kidney transplant.
“He was a great Australian. He was a larger than life character. In so many ways he left his mark on the Australian community,” Prime Minister John Howard told a news conference.
Media rival Rupert Murdoch, chief of News Corp who started his global media empire with one Australian newspaper, praised Packer as a competitor and friend.
“He was the most successful businessman of our generation,” said Murdoch in a statement.
Packer had two great passions — sport and gambling.
CRICKET REVOLUTION: He was the country’s biggest punter, wagering millions at a time at racetracks and casinos, and turned the cricket world upside down with his World Series revolution in 1977.
Packer was not the type to back down from a challenge and when he was refused the broadcast rights to Australian Test cricket in 1977, he launched his own World Series Cricket, poaching some of the game’s greatest stars.
It popularized the one-day version of the game, although critics dismissed the colourful uniforms as ‘pyjamas’ and an insult to tradition.
But he was hailed after his death as the greatest Australian contributor to the game since Donald Bradman, with Australian and South African players observing a minute’s silence on Tuesday before the second day of the second Test in Melbourne.
“He knew that the players were being in a sense financially downtrodden and it was his job to put it right, and put it right he did,” said former Australian captain Richie Benaud, now Channel Nine’s voice of cricket.
“He was absolutely brilliant...he’ll be much missed.”
Australia’s richest man had six floodlight towers built around the Sydney Cricket Ground so matches could be played at night.
A white ball, black sight-screens and coloured clothing were introduced. The establishment scoffed at Packer’s ideas, but the crowds loved it and voted with their feet.
The first day-night match was staged at the SCG on Nov 28, 1978. World Series Cricket officials had hoped for 20,000 spectators but around 50,000 poured in to the famous old ground to celebrate an Australian win.
The players returned to the establishment as highly-paid professionals, while Packer got the television rights he wanted and millions of people who had never been interested in cricket were suddenly transfixed by the game.
One-day cricket had already begun to take root before the introduction of World Series Cricket, but Packer’s involvement undoubtedly accelerated the process.—Reuters/AFP
Dear visitor, the comments section is undergoing an overhaul and will return soon.