Fed: Packer friend says James is capable

AAP General News (Australia)
12-27-2005
Fed: Packer friend says James is capable

MELBOURNE, Dec 27 AAP - Advertising guru and Packer family friend Harold Mitchell says
James Packer is ready and able to take the reins of the family empire after Kerry Packer's
death overnight.

Mr Mitchell said Packer's son James was tough and clever, and would quadruple the business.

"James Packer, well known of course but always the son of Kerry Packer - I can tell
you that he's a tremendous fellow," Mr Mitchell, chairman of Mitchell & Partners, Australia's
largest media buyer, told ABC radio.

"He's financially literate, he's tough, he's strong, he's clever.

"It's never easy to be the son of a great man, and James has had to live with that
but, as I said to James, he'll take it on and he'll double it, quadruple it.

"He's got a great sense of being an Australian, of running business.

"He's taken these businesses to new levels himself because he's the one who's been
involved in the gaming enterprises, close to the media businesses of course, because he's
grown up with all of that.

"He's tough and you need to be.

"He'll also look more to the world, I suspect, than Kerry," Mr Mitchell said.

"They loved each other, you know, that whole family - tough and all as it was.

Mr Mitchell said PBL, the family business, was in great condition.

"Kerry had put that in tremendous shape. There is an executive organisation there which
is all powerful," he said.

Mr Mitchell said he last dined with Packer about six weeks ago.

"At dinner he wasn't well, he couldn't eat well, but the spirit and the fight was still
there, he was the strongest person in every way," he said.

"He wasn't well and he told me that.

"A week later, (he) fired up the plane and went to Argentina to watch polo and I was
pleased to hear that."

AAP kl/gfr/rj/br

KEYWORD: PACKER MITCHELL

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