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The major shareholder of casino operator Crown Resorts Ltd <CWN.AX>
cited mental illness as the reason for his quitting that firm's
board in March, following a tumultuous period in his life, which
included a break-up with singer Mariah Carey and the failure of
Crown's expansion strategy.
He quit the board of his private company Consolidated Press
Holdings (CPH) on June 27, and corporate records show he
resigned from 19 other directorships on the same day, plus
another two since.
Packer, whose net worth is estimated by Forbes at $4.1 billion,
has quit 24 Australian company boards this year.
"The changes are largely administrative in nature and reflect
attempts to modernize and simplify the corporate structures," a
spokesman of Packer's flagship CPH said by email on Thursday.
His retreat is all the more remarkable because for generations,
and most of the 20th century, the Packer family has been a
fixture of Australia's media business scene.
The 50-year-old James is one of Australia's highest profile
businessmen and a household name who has previously served on
the boards of some of the country's biggest companies, from
Qantas Airways Ltd <QAN.AX> to Nine Entertainment Co Holdings
Ltd <NEC.AX> and Seek Ltd <SEK.AX>, where he was an early
investor.
Packer's father, Kerry, inherited media interests from his own
father, Frank, in 1974 and built them into a publishing and
television empire - which James sold a decade ago in order to
form Crown, a casino firm.
He built it up before quitting as a director in 2015 amid
heavily publicized personal upheaval including a brief
engagement to Carey.
Packer rejoined Crown's board a year later during a period of
turmoil for the company when a dozen and a half of its employees
were jailed in China for alleged breach of gambling marketing
laws there.
"Mr Packer is suffering from mental health issues. At this time
he intends to step back from all commitments," CPH had said in
March, when Packer quit Crown's board.
The Australian newspaper, which first reported Packer's string
of resignations, said he remains a director of CPH's parent
company, Consolidated Press International Holdings Limited,
domiciled in the Bahamas.
(Reporting by Tom Westbrook; Editing by Muralikumar Anantharaman)
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