{"id":30032,"date":"2022-05-23T02:38:46","date_gmt":"2022-05-23T05:38:46","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/?p=30032"},"modified":"2026-04-23T08:32:10","modified_gmt":"2026-04-23T11:32:10","slug":"the-star-entertainment-group-appoints-ben-heap-as-interim-chairman","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/the-star-entertainment-group-appoints-ben-heap-as-interim-chairman","title":{"rendered":"The Star Entertainment Group appoints Ben Heap as interim chairman"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Following the resignation of John O\u2019Neil, the Star Entertainment Group has named Ben Heap as interim chairman and Geoff Hogg as acting chief executive officer.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n

Australia.- The Star Entertainment Group has announced that Ben Heap<\/strong> will replace John O’Neil as executive chairman following\u00a0O’Neil’s resignation last week.<\/a> The company has also announced\u00a0that Geoff Hogg <\/strong>will be appointed as acting chief executive officer. Both will assume their new roles starting June 1, subject to regulatory approvals.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

O\u2019Neill<\/strong>\u00a0was appointed to the executive chairman role on an interim basis on April 1 following the\u00a0resignation of managing director and CEO Matt Bekier<\/a> on March 28. He was due to give evidence to New South Wales’ inquiry into The Star Entertainment last week, but the hearings were postponed until today (May 23) without explanation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

According to local media reports, Andrew Bowen<\/strong>, former director of institutional banking industrials sector at National Australia Bank, and Star director Richard Sheppard <\/strong>are also expected to give evidence today.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Since the inquiry started, chief financial officer\u00a0Harry Theodore<\/a>, chief casino officer\u00a0Greg Hawkins\u00a0<\/strong>and chief legal and risk officer\u00a0Paula Martin<\/strong>\u00a0have all stepped down.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Star director might have misled shareholders, inquiry hears<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

As previously reported by Focus Gaming News, Heap was accused of misleading shareholders by saying that media reports about the company were untruthful.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

On October 11, he had told shareholders that media outlets the Sydney Morning Herald, 60 Minutes and The Age had exaggerated accusations against the company when they reported that the\u00a0casino operator<\/a>\u00a0was implicated in suspected money laundering, organised crime and fraud. Despite Heap\u2019s statements, Star shares lost 23 per cent of their value on the same day.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Counsel assisting the inquiry Casper Conde asked Heap about his claims and\u00a0if he had misled the company\u2019s shareholders<\/strong>. Heap denied that and said the media had sensationalised the accusations and that their claims did not adequately reflect how Star Entertainment considered the situation.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Following the resignation of John O\u2019Neil, the Star Entertainment Group has named Ben Heap as interim chairman and Geoff Hogg as acting chief executive officer.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":176,"featured_media":29796,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"is_press_release":false,"is_interview":false,"is_opinion":false,"focusai_summary":"The Star Entertainment Group has appointed Ben Heap as interim chairman and Geoff Hogg as acting CEO, effective June 1, pending regulatory approvals. These leadership changes occur amidst an ongoing New South Wales inquiry into the company's alleged involvement in money laundering and organised crime, which has also scrutinised Ben Heap's past statements to shareholders. Several other senior executives have recently resigned from the company.","focusai_entities":"Star Entertainment Group, Ben Heap, Geoff Hogg, John O\u2019Neil, Matt Bekier, Andrew Bowen, Richard Sheppard, Harry Theodore, Greg Hawkins, Paula Martin, National Australia Bank, Sydney Morning Herald, 60 Minutes, The Age, Casper Conde","focusai_location":"Australia, New South Wales","focusai_target_profile":"ceo_executive (1.0), regulator (1.0), compliance_legal (1.0), operator_casino (0.9), payments_fraud_aml (1.0), investor_analyst (1.0), supplier_vendor (0.7), journalist_researcher (1.0)","focusai_suggestions":[{"label":"Regulatory Compliance Outlook","query":"Beyond interim appointments, what specific governance reforms and enhanced AML protocols will Star Entertainment implement to satisfy the New South Wales inquiry and mitigate future regulatory enforcement actions?"},{"label":"Capital Markets Repercussions","query":"How might the sustained leadership flux and the inquiry's findings regarding shareholder communication impact Star Entertainment's access to capital markets and its enterprise valuation in the near to medium term?"}],"footnotes":""},"categories":[16336,157,158],"tags":[23871],"class_list":["post-30032","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-australasia-news","category-business-news","category-slider-home","tag-the-star-entertainment-group"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30032","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=30032"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30032\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":30066,"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30032\/revisions\/30066"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/29796"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=30032"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=30032"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=30032"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}