Kerry Stokes

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Kerry Stokes, AO (Born: 12 December, 1940) is the chairman of Seven Network, one of the largest broadcasting corporations in Australia, and a recipient of the Order of Australia recognising his contributions to Australian business. Stokes has great interest in art and was elected to the board of the National Gallery of Australia, and was chairman for five years, from 1996.

Stokes is also the sole owner of the Australian & Northern China Caterpillar franchise, WesTrac. WesTrac operates in Western Australia, New South Wales & Northern China. The New South Wales dealership was a greenfields operation that commenced operation on Friday 9th April 2004. The Western Australia dealership started operating in 1989 after successfully taking over Wigmores Tractors. WesTrac is one of the largest Caterpillar Equipment dealerships in the world.

Stokes previously owned the Perth Wildcats basketball club in the Australian National Basketball League.

On 24 July 2006 Stokes purchased a Victoria Cross medal belonging to Alfred Shout for a world record $1,214,500, including commission and other charges, at auction and donated the medal to the Australian War Memorial in Canberra. [1]

Currently Stokes and the Seven Network owns commercial free-to-air television stations in Melbourne, Sydney, Brisbane, Perth, Adelaide and regional Queensland as well as 14 magazines including New Idea, That's Life and K-zone. Stokes also owns a third of Sky News Australia, half of the internet portal Yahoo! 7 and 100% of Fatso the Fat-Arsed Wombat.

Stokes formerly owned 49.9% of Ticketmaster7.