Australian billionaire James Packer bought 9.4 percent of Zillow Inc., becoming the second-biggest shareholder in the U.S. real-estate website

September 4, 2013 Leave a comment

Billionaire Packer Buys Zillow Stake as Housing Rebounds

By David Fickling – Sep 4, 2013

Australian billionaire James Packer bought 9.4 percent of Zillow Inc., becoming the second-biggest shareholder in the U.S. real-estate website amid a recovery in the housing market. Cavalane Holdings Pty bought about 3 million shares, Seattle-based Zillow said in a filing, without giving financial terms. The stake is valued at $298 million based on Zillow’s last closing price. Cavalane, controlled by Packer, is Zillow’s largest shareholder after Caledonia Private Investments Pty, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. Packer, who has a net worth of $6.1 billion according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index, is betting on improving demand in the U.S. housing market. Confidence among U.S. homebuilders climbed in August to the highest level since 2005 as demand for new homes supports the market amid rising mortgage rates. In August, Packer sold about A$261 million of shares in jobs website Seek Ltd. (SEK) and fund manager Magellan Financial Group Ltd. (MFG) that were held by Cavalane, the vehicle he used in 2010 to buy into broadcaster Ten Network Holdings Ltd. (TEN) Zillow climbed 2.7 percent to $99.09 yesterday. The stock has more than tripled this year, after advancing 23 percent in 2012.

To contact the reporter on this story: David Fickling in Sydney at dfickling@bloomberg.net

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Kee Koon Boon (“KB”) is the co-founder and director of HERO Investment Management which provides specialized fund management and investment advisory services to the ARCHEA Asia HERO Innovators Fund (www.heroinnovator.com), the only Asian SMID-cap tech-focused fund in the industry. KB is an internationally featured investor rooted in the principles of value investing for over a decade as a fund manager and analyst in the Asian capital markets who started his career at a boutique hedge fund in Singapore where he was with the firm since 2002 and was also part of the core investment committee in significantly outperforming the index in the 10-year-plus-old flagship Asian fund. He was also the portfolio manager for Asia-Pacific equities at Korea’s largest mutual fund company. Prior to setting up the H.E.R.O. Innovators Fund, KB was the Chief Investment Officer & CEO of a Singapore Registered Fund Management Company (RFMC) where he is responsible for listed Asian equity investments. KB had taught accounting at the Singapore Management University (SMU) as a faculty member and also pioneered the 15-week course on Accounting Fraud in Asia as an official module at SMU. KB remains grateful and honored to be invited by Singapore’s financial regulator Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) to present to their top management team about implementing a world’s first fact-based forward-looking fraud detection framework to bring about benefits for the capital markets in Singapore and for the public and investment community. KB also served the community in sharing his insights in writing articles about value investing and corporate governance in the media that include Business Times, Straits Times, Jakarta Post, Manual of Ideas, Investopedia, TedXWallStreet. He had also presented in top investment, banking and finance conferences in America, Italy, Sydney, Cape Town, HK, China. He has trained CEOs, entrepreneurs, CFOs, management executives in business strategy & business model innovation in Singapore, HK and China.

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