Moody\u2019s Investor Service has placed Crown Resorts’ rating on review after its acceptance of an acquisition offer from Blackstone.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n
Australia.- Moody’s Investors Service<\/a> has placed Crown Resorts’ Baa3 issuer rating on review for downgrade. It says the outlook for the company has changed after Crown Resorts’ board accepted an acquisition offer from Blackstone<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n After months of negotiations, Crown’s board unanimously backed investment firm Blackstone Inc\u2018s offer to acquire all the shares of Crown Resorts in a deal that values the firm at AUD8.9bn (US$6.36bn)<\/strong>. The sale is expected to be complete in the second half of 2022.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Moody\u2019s said the transaction would likely lead to a deterioration of Crown\u2019s key debt metrics and less conservative financial policies than are currently factored into the rating. <\/p>\n\n\n\n It said: \u201cWhile the full details of the proposed transaction and Blackstone\u2019s ultimate plans for Crown\u2019s ongoing business and financial profile have not been made public yet, Moody\u2019s expects that the proposed transaction, if completed, will likely lead to a deterioration of Crown\u2019s key debt metrics<\/strong> and less conservative financial policies than currently factored into the rating.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cGiven a successful transaction would put Crown under private equity ownership, and that the private equity business model typically involves more aggressive financial policies<\/strong> and a leveraged capital structure to extract value, Moody\u2019s believes that a successful transaction could likely lead to a downgrade, perhaps of multiple notches<\/strong>.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n However, Moody\u2019s notes that Crown could continue to maintain its rating should the transaction be unsuccessful or is funded in a way that allows Crown to continue to maintain adjusted financial metrics in line with Moody\u2019s current expectations.<\/p>\n\n\n\n It said: \u201cThe company\u2019s financial strategy and risk management is a key component of our governance risk assessment framework and today\u2019s rating action considers the uncertainty around Crown\u2019s future financial strategy from a potential transaction.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n The deal will need to be cleared by the Foreign Investment Review Board (FIRB)<\/strong> and by gaming regulators in the states where Crown operates.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Moody\u2019s Investor Service has placed Crown Resorts’ rating on review after its acceptance of an acquisition offer from Blackstone.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":226,"featured_media":25492,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"is_press_release":false,"is_interview":false,"is_opinion":false,"focusai_summary":"Moody's Investor Service has placed Crown Resorts' Baa3 issuer rating on review for downgrade following its board's acceptance of Blackstone's AUD8.9bn acquisition offer. Moody's anticipates a deterioration of Crown's debt metrics and less conservative financial policies under private equity ownership, potentially leading to a multi-notch downgrade. The transaction requires approval from Australia's Foreign Investment Review Board and state gaming regulators.","focusai_entities":"Moody's Investor Service, Crown Resorts, Blackstone, Blackstone Inc, Foreign Investment Review Board (FIRB)","focusai_location":"Australia","focusai_target_profile":"ceo_executive (1.0), regulator (1.0), compliance_legal (0.9), operator_casino (0.9), investor_analyst (1.0), supplier_vendor (0.7), journalist_researcher (1.0)","focusai_suggestions":[{"label":"Blackstone's Debt Strategy?","query":"What specific debt metrics and financial covenants will Blackstone implement post-acquisition, and how will these align with or deviate from Crown's historical leverage policies and capital allocation strategies?"},{"label":"Regulatory Approval Criteria?","query":"How will the Foreign Investment Review Board and state gaming regulators assess Blackstone's suitability and financial capacity, particularly concerning its private equity model and potential impact on Crown's governance frameworks and regulatory compliance?"}],"footnotes":""},"categories":[16336,157,158],"tags":[16237,14657],"class_list":["post-27331","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-australasia-news","category-business-news","category-slider-home","tag-blackstone-group","tag-crown-resorts"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27331","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\/226"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=27331"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27331\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":27369,"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27331\/revisions\/27369"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/25492"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=27331"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=27331"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=27331"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}