James Packer takes a bigger stake on ex-wife’s Upside empire

Just-turned-50 gaming mogul James Packer has doubled his stake in former wife and glamour model Jodhi Meares’ The Upside Corporation.

Packer has taken over the 20 per cent holding of his Israeli billionaire businessman and movie producer friend Arnon Milchan, who initially invested in The Upside alongside Packer in October last year.

The deal is the next step in Packer’s extraction from his former life in Israel amid a corruption investigation into his good friend Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his family. The Aussie billionaire and Milchan have both been drawn into the probe.

Packer, who this weekend is celebrating his milestone birthday with friends and family at his Ellerstina polo property in Argentina, has now changed his official residence from Tel Aviv to Aspen, Colorado.

In line with Milchan’s sellout of the burgeoning fashion business after less than a year, the New Regency producer’s Los Angeles-based son Yariv Milchan has also come off The Upside Corp board, replaced by Packer’s lieutenant Mark Arbib.

Read the article by Christine Lacy, Margin Call columnist and Ben Butler, Business reporter in The Australian (subscription required).