For generations, Sydney’s Murdoch and Packer families were inexorably locked in a never-ending saga of war and peace between their respective media empires. Today, they appear to be on vastly different paths, and on opposite sides of the globe.

And nowhere is this more apparent than in the contrasting lives of the families’ next-generation heiresses; Francesca Packer Barham and Grace Murdoch.

Barbie wants to party: Francesca Packer Barham on the way to her 28th birthday party in Potts Point on Tuesday with new friend Robert Bates in pink cowboy hat.Credit:Matrix

Last Sunday, Rupert Murdoch’s second-youngest daughter Grace turned 21 in New York, in what appeared to be a glittering celebration; having inherited her mother Wendi Deng’s good looks and sense of style, it seems she also has big ambitions.

And as a beneficiary of – along with her sister Chloe and their four older half-siblings from Rupert Murdoch’s various marriages – the Murdoch Cruden Family Trust, which has been estimated to be worth more than $23 billion, the world certainly is her oyster.

The young Murdoch has already interned at the family owned, prestigious Wall Street Journal and Gwyneth Paltrow’s Goop empire, and remains an Ivy League student at Yale University. She’s also dating someone with a profile at Yale: Hugo Carney, the buff son of former senior adviser to president Barack Obama, Jay Carney, who served as press secretary during the Obama administration.

Little sister Chloe Murdoch gives Grace Murdoch a kiss at her 21st birthday celebrations in New York last week.Credit:Instagram

In contrast, on Tuesday night at Potts Point’s Franca Brasserie, it was “Chessie” who marked her birthday. Renowned for her wild fancy dress soirees, the oldest grandchild of the late Kerry Packer turned 28 donning an eye-popping, pink, Barbie-inspired outfit. PS has been reliably informed it was top-shelf Valentino, complete with nylon blonde wig and towering pink heels, to party the night away with her besties.

Troubled businessman Robert Bates has popped up with Francesca Packer Barham.Credit:Paul Harris

Indeed, it was quite a spectacle on Macleay Street, as the part-time property renovator, who appears to have given up university and her psychology studies and clearly still loves a party, made her way past photographers enveloped in a “cloud” of fuchsia tulle. For a woman who has previously lamented to PS about her lack of privacy in Sydney, she was hard to miss.

On closer inspection, it was the cowboy in the pink Stetson she was with who caught PS’ attention, given he was former AFR Young Rich Lister Robert Bates. He was most recently in this column over the financial calamities of his Aquamamma business with his former wife, Emma Gibson, which has left several big-name investors seething.

Neither the birthday girl nor Bates, who was also with the heiress at lunch the next day in Coogee, responded to queries about the status of their relationship.

Hats and empty pockets

Sydney’s hospitality industry had much to celebrate at Monday’s coveted Good Food Guide Awards at Shell House, where the likes of celeb chefs Neil Perry, Matt Moran, Peter Gilmore and Clare Smyth joined 400 others.

But as the hats were being handed out and backs slapped, the horror stories of the past three years were also being shared in hushed tones – though one had more tongues wagging than the others.

Barry McDonald has just opened his 19th restaurant, as manager.Credit:Fairfax Media

The Herald’s esteemed food critic Terry Durack wrote in October about high-profile Sydney restaurateur Barry McDonald opening his 19th restaurant, the glamorous Bar Grazie in Potts Point. Not that some of his former suppliers are necessarily popping corks in celebration.

Especially Sydney wine supplier Stuart Leece, director of Single Vineyard Sellers, who says his company is more than $12,000 out of pocket from the previous venue that was fronted by McDonald just up the road. Cafe Giorgio, adjacent to the El Alamein Fountain, closed down earlier this year.

Cafe Giorgio’s parent company, Military Road 23 Pty Ltd, is now being liquidated owing more than $1 million, mostly in staff superannuation.

“Barry was not listed as a director, but he was the guy we dealt with, and he benefited from the goodwill and his reputation as being a major player in this town. But for us, that’s all been destroyed,” a furious Leece told PS.

McDonald, who cited COVID-19 and Sydney’s ongoing wet weather as reasons for the largely outdoor cafe’s demise, told PS he “felt terrible” about the situation, that “if I had the money I’d pay him myself” but he was only ever a manager of Giorgio, as he is at Bar Grazie.

“I’m trying to rebuild my life, I can’t afford to open my own restaurant,” McDonald said.

Liquidator Stephen Michell informed creditors he had identified several former directors of Military Road 23 Pty Ltd, the most recent being former Woolworths boss Bill Wavish. However Wavish did not complete a request for a Report On Company Activities and Property, nor did he deliver any company books and records in his possession.

Eight months before his directorship came to an end in December 2020, Wavish made headlines when he and his wife Vonnie sold both their Palm Beach weekender and their Kurraba Point trophy home with a combined worth of about $29 million.

According to the ASIC database, a director was not formally appointed to Military Road 23 Pty Ltd from January 1, 2021.

“And once again, it’s the little guy who gets stiffed,” Leece fumed.

Desperately seeking the Sarrises

Tracking down embattled would-be media moguls and renowned wine lovers Stan and Judy Sarris has proven to be a difficult task in the lead-up to Wednesday’s creditors’ meeting of his debt-ridden company GT Wine Magazine Pty Ltd.

Judy and Stan Sarris in 2006. The couple is reportedly in Portugal and plan to spend Christmas in Sweden.Credit:Janie Barrett

Sarris has not responded to PS’s queries. Administrators of GT Wine Magazine are advising creditors to terminate a Deed of Company Arrangement after the company missed repayments, and to vote in favour of winding up the business, which they described as “hopelessly insolvent”.

Friends of the Sarrises told PS the couple was in Portugal and would not be back in Sydney for some time, with plans to spend Christmas in Sweden.

The administrators have told creditors the company remained in breach of certain covenants provided under the DOCA, including the director covenants that no funds be transferred to any related entity. Records in possession of the administrators showed net advances to a “related entity” in the amount of $133,316.

However, the administrators also revealed their access to the company’s Xero file accounting software had been removed, despite requests for access.

Still in corporate sin bin

By any measure, in the business world a 15-year bankruptcy is an extraordinary achievement.

And yet that’s the prospect facing one of Sydney’s most well-known brothel madams, Suzelle Antic, who for years operated the Misty’s and Mistiques brothels across Sydney.

Sydney madam Suzelle Antic.

Antic has been bankrupt since 2015 but only filed a statement of affairs in June this year. She is embroiled in a Federal Court battle with her bankruptcy trustee Michael Jones who has applied to have her bankruptcy extended to 2030 – citing a failure to pay her trustee and pushing for the maximum period of eight years – well beyond the usual three-year period in the corporate sin bin.

Antic and her establishments have been in the news for decades.

In 2009 her “high class” massage parlour in Potts Point, which was operating next door to exclusive girls’ school St Vincent’s College on Tusculum Street, was sprayed with bullets.

Nobody was injured during the shooting and two men were seen running from the area.

Then in 2018 Antic was described as the manager of Misty’s massage parlour in Enmore when it was showered in bullets, as strippers, masseuses and clients inside the establishment locked themselves behind closed doors.

Antic did not respond to PS’ calls this week.

Sparkling upgrades

Bauble season is upon us, which is probably why Sydney’s biggest buyer of Bulgari bling Angela Fleming is offloading what ranks as one of the most eye-catching pieces to adorn a Sydney neck – the sparkling “La Vie Della Seta” (The Silk Road) pendant necklace.

Angela Fleming is offloading one of her redundant Bulgari diamond necklaces at the Leonard Joel auction in Woollahra.

PS hears the supermarket heiress is keen to “upgrade”. Made in 2017, it goes under the hammer at Woollahra’s Leonard Joel next month, with price expectations of up to $500,000. Fleming, like Elizabeth Taylor and Gina Lollobrigida, has long had a passion for Bulgari.

It’s not the most expensive item listed among the 229 lots, which according to estimates could bring in a total of $12.5 million. That honour is held by lot 130, a fancy yellow diamond ring from an unknown local vendor featuring a cut-cornered rectangular modified brilliant-cut diamond weighing 26.15 carats. Sale estimates put it at up to $1.2 million.

Interestingly, it is a much smaller blue diamond ring, a comparative bargain at between $100,000 and $150,000, creating the most buzz ahead of the auction.

Weighing “just” 0.74 carats, blue diamonds are red-hot around the world at present – though this one is clearly not on the scale of the most famous blue diamond of all, the 45.52-carat Hope Diamond, which boasts provenance dating back to the 17th century to King Louis XIV of France.

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