Analysts believe Crown Resorts will offer to make further changes to its board and management in an attempt to satisfy Victoria’s Royal Commission.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n
Australia.- With Crown Resorts facing\u00a0a possible loss of its Melbourne gaming licence<\/a>, analysts expect it to offer to make more changes to its board in a bid to satisfy Victoria’s Royal Commission.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Tomorrow (Tuesday),\u00a0the company will have to argue why it should continue holding its casino licence.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Helen Bird<\/strong>, a lecturer on corporate governance at Swinburne Law School in Melbourne, said: “What we have seen is a lack of confidence in the board, as it currently exists, to make changes necessary for the company to turn around. The current board, as it stands, has no prospect of continuing<\/strong>.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n Adrian Finanzio<\/strong>, the counsel assisting Victoria\u2019s Royal Commission into Crown Resort has told the inquiry that\u00a0the casino operator should lose its licence<\/strong>. He questioned\u00a0the conduct of Xavier Walsh<\/strong>, Crown Melbourne\u2019s chief executive, as well as that of former executive chairman,\u00a0Helen Coonan<\/strong>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Finanzio said they were not appropriate people to remain connected to the\u00a0Crown Resorts<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n He said: \u201cWalsh partially disclosed the existence of the issues to other directors<\/strong>, downplayed the significance of the issue to Crown\u2019s lawyers, and never followed up the matter in any meaningful way.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n He told former Federal Court judge\u00a0Raymond Finkelstein<\/strong>, who\u2019s leading the inquiry, that if he decides Crown Melbourne should hold its licence, it must be \u201cplaced\u00a0under strict supervision and should not be left to its own devices<\/strong>\u00a0to implement reform.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n The judge leading the inquiry was originally due to\u00a0release his report by August 1<\/a>, but Finkelstein has ordered an extension to the inquiry up to October 15.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In July,\u00a0Crown Resorts\u2019 lawyer Leon Zwier<\/strong>\u00a0wrote a letter to the\u00a0Victorian gaming minister Melissa Horne<\/strong>\u00a0warning that 12,000 jobs would be at risk if\u00a0Crown<\/a>\u00a0is unable to retain its gaming licence. The letter also noted that\u00a0the casino operator wouldn\u2019t comply with its lending covenants<\/strong>\u00a0which total $700m if it loses the licence.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Zwier wrote: \u201cThis will impact Crown\u2019s shareholders, employees, unions, trade creditors, patrons, the hotel precinct, and the Melbourne tourism industry<\/strong>.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Raymond Finkelstein<\/strong> said the letter made it seem Crown Resorts wanted to \u201cmake sure that the commission doesn\u2019t make a particular finding.” <\/p>\n\n\n\n Star Entertainment Group has withdrawn its offer to buy\u00a0Crown Resorts<\/a>. In May,\u00a0Star Entertainment<\/a>\u00a0made an unsolicited non-binding offer of AU$12bn<\/strong>\u00a0(US$9.4bn)<\/strong>\u00a0for the casino operator.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Star Entertainment said: \u201cIssues raised at Victoria\u2019s Royal Commission into Crown Melbourne have the potential to materially impact the value of Crown<\/strong>, including whether it retains the license to operate its Melbourne casino or the conditions under which its license is retained.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Although Star Entertainment has withdrawn its offer, it said it would remain open to exploring opportunities<\/strong> with Crown. It said it would continue to closely monitor the Victorian Royal Commission <\/strong>and Western Australian Royal Commission.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Analysts believe Crown Resorts will offer to make further changes to its board and management in an attempt to satisfy Victoria’s Royal Commission.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":176,"featured_media":19861,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"is_press_release":false,"is_interview":false,"is_opinion":false,"focusai_summary":"Crown Resorts faces a critical decision from Victoria's Royal Commission regarding its Melbourne gaming license, with analysts anticipating further board and management changes to address severe corporate governance failures. The inquiry's findings have already led Star Entertainment Group to withdraw its AU$12bn acquisition offer, citing material impact on Crown's valuation and licensing conditions. The potential license loss threatens 12,000 jobs and could trigger breaches of Crown's $700m lending covenants, impacting various stakeholders.","focusai_entities":"Crown Resorts, Victoria\u2019s Royal Commission, Helen Bird, Swinburne Law School, Adrian Finanzio, Xavier Walsh, Helen Coonan, Raymond Finkelstein, Leon Zwier, Melissa Horne, Star Entertainment Group, Western Australian Royal Commission","focusai_location":"Australia, Victoria, Melbourne, Western Australia","focusai_target_profile":"ceo_executive (1.0), regulator (1.0), compliance_legal (1.0), operator_casino (0.9), payments_fraud_aml (0.7), investor_analyst (1.0), supplier_vendor (0.7), journalist_researcher (1.0)","focusai_suggestions":[{"label":"Governance Remediation Strategy","query":"What specific, actionable governance remediation strategies and board composition changes will Crown Resorts present to the Victoria Royal Commission to address systemic failures and secure license retention?"},{"label":"Post-Inquiry M&A Outlook","query":"How will the final determinations of the Victorian and Western Australian Royal Commissions, particularly regarding licensing conditions, fundamentally reshape the M&A landscape and valuation metrics for integrated resort operators in Australia?"}],"footnotes":""},"categories":[16336,157],"tags":[14657],"class_list":["post-20927","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-australasia-news","category-business-news","tag-crown-resorts"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20927","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\/176"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=20927"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20927\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":20961,"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20927\/revisions\/20961"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/19861"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=20927"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=20927"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=20927"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}Star Entertainment Group withdraws offer for Crown Resorts<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n