Book Description

The riveting inside story of how the Murdochs and Packers lost $950 million in One.Tel. Young, hip and smart, like the rich kids who backed it, One.Tel grew faster than any company in Australian history - then vanished in a puff of smoke. At the height of the hype, in November 1999, One.Tel was worth more than $5 billion, almost as much as Kerry Packer's entire empire. Its founder, Jodee Rich, was worth close to $2 billion, with two houses, a jet, a helicopter, three powerboats and a private resort in the WhitSundays. Less than 18 months later the 'fun and friendly' phone company was gone, the Packers and Murdochs had lost nearly $1 billion, and Jodee Rich was being investigated by Australia's corporate cops. Rich Kids is the inside story of One.Tel's meteoric rise and fall, told by award-winning investigative journalist Paul Barry. It's a tale of chaos, incompetence, greed and deceit; of an era when huge fortunes were made in the crazy dot-com boom; and of James Packer's and Lachlan Murdoch's business brilliance - or lack of it. Above all, Rich Kids is the story of One.Man. Jodee Rich dragged millions of dollars from the wreckage of his first corporate disaster in the 1980s, then seduced Australia's two most powerful families to back him in One.Tel u and did it all over again. Getting closer to the publicity-shy Rich than anyone else has ever been able, Paul Barry delivers an explosive and entertaining account of one of Australia's biggest corporate disasters.