James Packer looks at Argentina’s energy and mining investments

According to people familiar with the matter, billionaire James Packer is considering an investment in Argentina’s energy or mining sector.

Packer was scouting investment opportunities at a racetrack dinner in Buenos Aires late last year with businessmen and politicians, including Economy Minister Sergio Massa, the people said, who asked not to be known to discuss private details.

When his father Kerry died in 2005, he inherited a multibillion-dollar business empire and is broke after last year’s sale of Australian casino operator Crown Resorts to Blackstone for nearly $9 billion. Packer, a frequent visitor to Argentina, owned more than a third of Crown.

A representative for Packer’s private investment company could not be reached by phone for comment and did not immediately respond to an email seeking comment.

Foreign investment has become somewhat rare in Argentina amid a series of interventionist measures, including capital controls, and annual inflation nearing 100 percent. Massa, the country’s fifth economy minister in four years, is trying to turn the economy around and is expected to run as the presidential candidate in October’s election if he is successful. Some investors reckon that a new government would improve the business climate in the resource-rich country.

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Argentina’s oil and gas sector is already attracting attention thanks to pipeline capacity expansion plans that would help the announced Vaca Muerta shale field unlock its potential.

A program with the International Monetary Fund to revise electricity tariffs in Argentina is also making this industry more attractive. Italy’s Enel SpA is selling all of its Argentinian assets, including a power plant and electricity distributor in Buenos Aires.

In mining, Argentina has emerged as one of the most exciting prospects for the production of lithium, coveted by battery makers for the world’s clean energy and electric vehicle transition. In Argentina’s Andes, too, miners are rushing to mine copper, another metal needed for the renewable energy shift.