{"id":10752,"date":"2020-10-08T20:52:28","date_gmt":"2020-10-08T20:52:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/?p=10752"},"modified":"2026-04-24T01:09:31","modified_gmt":"2026-04-24T04:09:31","slug":"packer-might-have-to-sell-crown-stake","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/packer-might-have-to-sell-crown-stake","title":{"rendered":"Packer might have to sell Crown stake"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

The Crown Resorts shareholder has described the ongoing New South Wales inquiry as a \u201cpainful\u201d and \u201cterribly shocking experience\u201d.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n

Australia.- In his last day appearing at the public inquiry into Crown Resorts, gaming billionaire James Packer admitted that he might have to sell part of his stake in the company.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The former director of the Australian casino operator said he was ready to cut his stake and declared that he would never re-join the operator’s board, as long as the firm was able to keep the casino licence for the AU$2.4 billion property it is building at Barangaroo. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

He said the inquiry was a \u201cpainful\u201d and a \u201cterribly shocking experience\u201d as he was accused of dealing with criminals and trying to land a prohibited deal<\/a><\/em><\/strong> with Hong Kong\u2019s \u201cking of gambling\u201d Stanley Ho, and his son, Melco CEO Lawrence Ho.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThis has been a terribly painful and terribly shocking experience for the board, as it has been for me. I won\u2019t be going on the board again, I think the board will be more independent than it was in the past,\u201d Packer said. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

During\u00a0the Liquor & Gaming NSW<\/em><\/strong> (ILGA)\u00a0inquiry, Crown Resorts was accused of associating with VIP guests with known connections to organised crime, and letting them use unsupervised bank accounts when they were brought to gamble in Australian casinos.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Speaking about the Sydney casino, Packer admitted \u201cI thought that the inbound Chinese tourism market was going to continue to grow in Australia at double digits, and I was clearly wrong about that.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Packer, who still owns 37 per cent of Crown, no longer has any operational role after quitting its board. He now accepted some cap on shareholding is needed at Crown.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The former CEO was questioned by lawyer Naomi Sharp, who told the inquiry Crown had placed full-page newspaper advertisements saying that Crown\u2019s only junket was Hong Kong-listed Suncity Group Holdings, when the firm used at least four junkets in the region.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Packer agreed \u201cwith the benefit of hindsight\u201d that parts of the advertisements were wrong, including claims that Crown had a robust vetting system for junket operators. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Crown Resorts shareholder has described the ongoing New South Wales inquiry as a \u201cpainful\u201d and \u201cterribly shocking experience\u201d.  <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":10754,"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, a significant shareholder in Crown Resorts, testified at the New South Wales inquiry, describing it as a \"painful\" experience and indicating a potential divestment of part of his stake. The inquiry scrutinized Crown's alleged associations with organised crime, use of unsupervised bank accounts for VIPs, and misleading statements regarding junket operations, raising critical concerns about the Barangaroo casino license and corporate governance frameworks.","focusai_entities":"Crown Resorts, James Packer, Stanley Ho, Melco, Lawrence Ho, Liquor & Gaming NSW (ILGA), Suncity Group Holdings, Naomi Sharp","focusai_location":"Australia, New South Wales, Sydney, Hong Kong, Barangaroo","focusai_target_profile":"ceo_executive (1.0), regulator (1.0), compliance_legal (1.0), operator_casino (0.9), marketing_crm (0.7), payments_fraud_aml (1.0), investor_analyst (1.0), supplier_vendor (0.7), journalist_researcher (1.0)","focusai_suggestions":[{"label":"Barangaroo License Impact","query":"What specific regulatory conditions or penalties might Liquor & Gaming NSW impose on Crown Resorts to retain its Barangaroo casino license, and what is the projected financial impact of such measures?"},{"label":"Governance Framework Evolution","query":"How will Crown Resorts' revised corporate governance framework, post-inquiry, specifically address the identified deficiencies in board independence, VIP client vetting, and junket operator oversight?"}],"footnotes":""},"categories":[16336,439],"tags":[289,14657,23773],"class_list":["post-10752","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-australasia-news","category-legal-news","tag-australia","tag-crown-resorts","tag-james-packer"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10752","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=10752"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10752\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":777009189,"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10752\/revisions\/777009189"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/10754"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10752"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10752"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10752"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}