Australian Kerry Packer knew he was dying, refused treatment - doctor
(AP)
Updated: 2005-12-28 13:57

The late Australian media mogul Kerry Packer knew he was dying late last week but refused further treatment, his doctor said Wednesday.

Packer _ listed by Forbes magazine this year as the world's 94th-richest man with a US$5 billion (euro4.2 billion) fortune _ died Monday at his Sydney home. He was 68.

Dr. Ian Bailey, Packer's cardiologist for eight years, said the billionaire knew last week that he was dying as his heart and last remaining kidney had started to fail _ but he refused dialysis.

Australia's richest man Kerry Packer (R) is followed by his son James (L), executive chairman of Publishing and Broadcasting Limited (PBL), as he walks to the company's annual general meeting in Sydney in this October 27, 2005 file photo.[Reuters/file]

"He said his time had come. He said, 'I'd like to be here, but that's life. It'll go on without me,"' Bailey told The Associated Press in a telephone interview.

"He refused dialysis ... He wanted to die with dignity," Bailey said. "He's the bravest man I've ever looked after. He'd lived a life that no one else could live with the amount of illness he had."

Analysts had predicted that shares in the Packer family's media and gaming empire, Publishing & Broadcasting Ltd., could fall as much as 10 percent because of the death when the Australian share market reopened Wednesday after the Christmas break.

But PBL shares slipped only 1.4 percent by the end of a morning of low-volume trading on the Australian Stock Exchange.

"It's not surprising (that) we haven't seen an enormous movement in the share price," said David Halliday, a client adviser at Macquarie Equities. "The company is much bigger than just Kerry, and the market has certainly demonstrated that in the way it's reacted."

James Packer, 38, the elder of Kerry Packer's two children, is set to become the fourth generation of the Packer dynasty to run the family business.

The younger Packer has steadily assumed greater responsibility within PBL, becoming managing director in 1996 then executive chairman in 1998.

He announced in August that PBL's net profit fell 28 percent to 480.1 million Australian dollars US$363.4 million; euro295.7 million) for the fiscal year ending June 30 after a difficult 12 months for its television business.

PBL owns Australia's largest casino, Melbourne's Crown Casino, and recently acquired Burswood Casino in the west coast city of Perth.

Alongside Hong Kong-listed Melco, PBL is building two casinos in Macao, dubbed Asia's Las Vegas, with Asian businessman Stanley Ho, and is tendering to develop Singapore's first casinos.