{"id":777022421,"date":"2025-01-29T09:44:26","date_gmt":"2025-01-29T12:44:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/?p=777022421"},"modified":"2026-04-22T02:19:02","modified_gmt":"2026-04-22T05:19:02","slug":"the-star-sells-assets-amid-financial-challenges","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/the-star-sells-assets-amid-financial-challenges","title":{"rendered":"The Star sells assets amid financial challenges"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The Star Entertainment Group has decided to sell The Star Sydney Event Centre and other spaces.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<!--more-->\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Australia.- <strong>The Star Entertainment Group<\/strong> is to sell The Star Sydney Event Centre and some other spaces at The Star Sydney to<strong> Foundation Theatres <\/strong>for AU$60m (US$37.5m). It has executed an exclusivity arrangement and binding term sheet setting out key terms. The transaction is subject to the finalisation of long-form transaction documents and customary conditions, including government and regulatory consents.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The company said the proceeds will be kept in the dedicated account created under the group&#8217;s debt agreement and will be classified as restricted cash. It aims to complete the transaction by February 28.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Steve McCann<\/strong>, The Star&#8217;s CEO, said: \u201cThe Star has worked closely with the team at Foundation Theatres since they acquired the sublease for the Sydney Lyric in 2011. We are pleased to partner with them as part of the continued evolution of our broad entertainment offerings at The Star Sydney. We continue to work on a number of other potential non-core asset transactions.&#8221;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">For Q2, the star posted\u00a0<strong>revenue of AU$299m (US$185.4m)<\/strong>, down 15 per cent\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/casinos-in-australia-the-star-posts-quarterly-revenue-of-us230-85m\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">sequentially<\/a>. Earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortisation (EBITDA) were negative AU$8m (US$5m) compared to AU$18m (US$11.84m) in the previous quarter.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The company said the decline in revenue was mainly due to&nbsp;<a target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/the-star-to-close-treasury-brisbane-casino-on-august-25\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">the closure of Treasury Brisbane Casino<\/a> and softness at The Star Sydney following the implementation of mandatory carded play and cash limits partially offset by revenue growth at The Star Gold Coast.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The\u00a0<strong>Star Sydney\u00a0<\/strong>revenue was AU$176m (US$109.1m), down 6 per cent sequentially and 23 per cent in year-on-year terms. EBITDA was negative AU$4m (US$2.5m) compared to negative AU$21m (US$13m) in the first quarter.\u00a0The\u00a0<strong>Star Gold Coast<\/strong> revenue was AU$111m (US$68.8m), down 7 per cent year-on-year but up 3 per cent compared to the previous quarter. EBITDA was positive at AU$11m (US$6.8m) but down 48 per cent yearly.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>David Crisafulli<\/strong>, the premier of Queensland, said he is open to discussing possible tax relief to prevent job losses and has suggested Star venues could be taken on by another company. New South Wales premier\u00a0<strong>Chris Minns<\/strong>\u00a0ruled out any financial support for the Star. He said: \u201cWe\u2019ve got funding requests right across NSW, from roads to psychiatrists to nurses to the railways. I mean, I don\u2019t have money for casinos, I\u2019m sorry.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Star Entertainment Group has decided to sell The Star Sydney Event Centre and other spaces.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":176,"featured_media":26456,"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 is divesting The Star Sydney Event Centre to Foundation Theatres for AU$60m, a strategic move for non-core asset rationalization and debt management, pending regulatory approvals. This transaction occurs amidst significant Q2 financial declines, driven by regulatory compliance impacts on gaming verticals and broader market softness, prompting varied governmental responses regarding potential industry support.","focusai_entities":"The Star Entertainment Group, Foundation Theatres, Steve McCann, David Crisafulli, Chris Minns, Sydney Lyric","focusai_location":"Australia, Sydney, Brisbane, Gold Coast, Queensland, New South Wales","focusai_target_profile":"ceo_executive (1.0), regulator (0.9), compliance_legal (0.8), operator_casino (1.0), payments_fraud_aml (0.8), investor_analyst (1.0), supplier_vendor (0.7), journalist_researcher (1.0)","focusai_suggestions":[{"label":"Star's Capital Allocation?","query":"How will the AU$60m proceeds from the Event Centre sale be strategically deployed to mitigate debt, enhance liquidity, or fund core gaming vertical investments, given the restricted cash classification?"},{"label":"Regulatory Impact on GGR?","query":"What specific long-term GGR and NGR projections has The Star Entertainment Group modeled, considering the sustained impact of mandatory carded play and cash limits across its Sydney operations?"}],"footnotes":""},"categories":[16336,157],"tags":[23907,23871],"class_list":["post-777022421","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-australasia-news","category-business-news","tag-land-based-casino","tag-the-star-entertainment-group"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/777022421","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=777022421"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/777022421\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":777022448,"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/777022421\/revisions\/777022448"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/26456"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=777022421"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=777022421"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=777022421"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}