negotiated a part-buyout<\/a><\/em><\/strong> by Melco, a firm controlled by Ho’s son.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\nPacker acknowledged trying to sell one-fifth of Crown to Ho, even though his company had committed not to\u00a0grant Stanley Ho any participation. He said he believed the company\u2019s legal team would take care of any eventualities.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
During the hearing, it was also revealed that talks between Crown and Melco began due to an inquiry on what Macau’s gaming regulators would do if Crown tried to merge with Wynn Resorts.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Packer was curious about the possibility of a Crown-Wynn merger, with him retaining 10 per cent of the shares.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Packer said he and Lawrence Ho, Stanley\u2019s son, eventually dropped the idea and formed another agreement.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
He said: “Lawrence was interested in doing something with Crown if we could make it work. He believed in the assets\u201d, he said, according to IAG.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The former Crown CEO said he was flexible on the price for the deal since he was interested in reaching an agreement with Ho, and did not pay much attention to the regulations that prohibited it.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Melco finally acquired about 10 per cent of Crown and ended up selling its shares to\u00a0The Blackstone Group.\u00a0Packer still has a 37 per cent in Crown worth AU$2.2 billion (US$1.57 billion).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The former Crown CEO admitted having considered a merger with Lawrence Ho\u2019s Melco and \u201cforgot\u201d about Australian laws.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":10703,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"is_press_release":false,"is_interview":false,"is_opinion":false,"focusai_summary":"James Packer, former Crown CEO, testified at the Liquor & Gaming New South Wales inquiry, admitting he \"forgot\" Australian laws prohibiting dealings with Stanley Ho while negotiating a Melco part-buyout. He also stated he would have withdrawn Crown staff from China if aware of their arrest risks, despite 19 officials being jailed for illegal gambling promotion. The inquiry assesses Crown's suitability to retain its Barangaroo casino license, highlighting significant governance and regulatory compliance failures.","focusai_entities":"James Packer, Crown Resorts, Lawrence Ho, Melco, Stanley Ho, Wynn Resorts, The Blackstone Group, Liquor & Gaming New South Wales","focusai_location":"Australia, China, Hong Kong, Macau","focusai_target_profile":"ceo_executive (1.0), regulator (1.0), compliance_legal (1.0), operator_casino (1.0), payments_fraud_aml (0.7), investor_analyst (1.0), supplier_vendor (0.8), journalist_researcher (1.0)","focusai_suggestions":[{"label":"Crown License Impact","query":"What specific governance framework enhancements and compliance remediation measures will Crown Resorts be required to implement to satisfy Liquor & Gaming New South Wales and retain its Barangaroo casino license?"},{"label":"M&A Regulatory Implications","query":"How will the revelations regarding James Packer's \"forgetfulness\" about regulatory prohibitions on dealing with Stanley Ho impact future M&A due diligence and regulatory approval processes for major iGaming and casino transactions in Australia?"}],"footnotes":""},"categories":[16336,439],"tags":[14657,23773,665],"class_list":["post-10701","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-australasia-news","category-legal-news","tag-crown-resorts","tag-james-packer","tag-melco"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10701","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10701"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10701\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10721,"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10701\/revisions\/10721"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/10703"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10701"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10701"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10701"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}