A Rollicking Tale Of Swiss Bank Accounts And Money-making Adventurers In The Roaring '90s.
The deals and deeds of Sydney's power players of the 1990s - Graham Richardson, Trevor Kennedy and Rene Rivkin among them - laid bare.
It is a truth universally acknowledged, that an Australian in possession of a good fortune must be in want of a Swiss banker . . .'
The dark channels of money and power that flow beneath the surface of Australian society are perilous places. Behind the gossip columns and headlines, the famous names and celebrity makeovers, life is a precarious business. One wrong move spells disaster. For this is the world of the networkers. The games they play, the restaurants they frequent and the social circles they inhabit determine who is in and who is out. Who ends up very rich and who is bankrupt. Everyone is a diner, but who gets to share the crumbs and who ends up on the menu?
For years Graham Richardson, Trevor Kennedy and Rene Rivkin navigated these waters deftly with a little secret help from their offshore advisor. The exposure of their Swiss accounts uncovered a world of secret share trading going back decades by a much wider group of players. This is a story of more than just three clever swimmers. It's a lifestyle.
In 'Packer's Lunch' Neil Chenoweth plots the twists and turns of the 1990s network wars with a deadly eye. His cutting account ranges from the culinary carnage of DIMIA hit teams to the table settings at Machiavelli restaurant; from rebirthing One.Tel's Jodee Rich to Richo's Excellent Adventure. It moves from the stories behind the AMP power struggle to the secrets of the Fairfax takeover. There is inept manoeuvring in the shrubbery, unpleasantness at The Toaster, Macquarie Bankers rampant, and private detectives behaving badly.
It's not pretty. For Chenoweth's sweeping narrative tells the wider story of a network and a generation fighting for its very survival. It pits the ageing street fighters of the 1980s against a new breed of uber-fund managers and McKinsey management consultants. This is a story of how power works in Australia and of the power players who have dominated our past and continue to shape our future.
