Packer's PBL back in the black


Kerry Packer's Consolidated Press Holdings has 38 percent of PBL

By Geoff Hiscock
CNN Asia Business Editor

SYDNEY, Australia (CNN) -- Media and gaming group Publishing and Broadcasting Ltd (PBL), the listed flagship of Australian media tycoon Kerry Packer, is back in the black.

PBL reported a net profit Wednesday of Aust. $286.2 million ($155.5 million) for the June 2002 year on revenue of just over A$2.5 billion ($1.35 billion).

That compared with a loss of A$84.6 million ($46 million) a year earlier, brought about by heavy writedowns on investments.

Packer is Australia's richest man, with a fortune estimated at A$5.9 billion ($3.2 billion).

His Consolidated Press Holdings holds 38.3 percent of PBL, which runs the Nine television network, the ACP magazine publishing division, and the highly profitable Crown Casino in Melbourne.

But PBL also had a large stake in the junior telco One.Tel, which imploded last year in one of Australia's most spectacular corporate collapses.

'Profoundly misled'

PBL and Rupert Murdoch's News Corp. lost their entire $460 million investment in One.Tel.

The One.Tel debacle contributed to PBL's 2001 loss -- its first -- and led to Packer's son James and Murdoch's son Lachlan claiming they were "profoundly misled" about the true state of the telco's finances.

The pair, the respective chairmen of PBL and News Ltd, sat on the One.Tel board.

In a statement to the Australian Stock Exchange Wednesday, James Packer said PBL's diversified business mix helped it deliver a profit in a "challenging" environment in 2002.

But he noted that television advertising remained soft and PBL's management was taking "every opportunity" to cut costs and increase efficiency at the Nine network.

Shares in PBL closed 3.84 percent lower Wednesday at A$8.77 on a day when the benchmark S&P/ASX200 lost 1.59 percent to 3093.2.