Australia’s richest man Kerry Packer, a pugnacious media mogul with a passion for sport and gambling, died overnight in Sydney, his television network said today. He was 68. Channel Nine gave no cause of death but Packer had been plagued by ill health for more than a decade, cheating death in 1990 when his heart stopped for several minutes while playing polo. “He died peacefully at home with his family at his bedside,” the television station said.
Packer built a multi-billion-dollar broadcast and publishing empire, as well as transforming the way international cricket is played to make it more television-friendly for the media age. His success in business was matched by a devil-may-care attitude, whether mocking the mistakes of competitors or shrugging off reports of his own heavy losses in casinos from Las Vegas to London.
“He was a man who you could truly say was larger than life,” said business rival and fellow tycoon Rupert Murdoch. Australian Prime Minister John Howard also paid tribute to the mogul, who was ranked by Forbes magazine this year as the 94th richest man in the world with a fortune of some A$6.9 billion (US$5.2 billion) dollars. “He was a great Australian. He was a larger-than-life character, and in so many ways he left his mark on the Australian community over a very long career in business,” Howard told reporters.
