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Crown Resorts must have abandoned any hopes that Victoria’s royal commission into its sprawling Melbourne casino will be relatively painless.
Perhaps it looked like things couldn’t get much worse after last year’s Bergin inquiry prompted NSW to suspend the licence for its new Sydney casino and triggered a mass exodus of senior executives and directors.
Victoria’s royal commission into the James Packer-backed casino giant heard on Monday that suspected money laundering had been identified in 14 new bank accounts that were not examined in last year’s damning Bergin inquiry.
Credit:Scott McNaughton
Executive chairman Helen Coonan has launched a sweeping “reform agenda” to rebuild the James Packer-backed gambling giant’s corporate governance, culture and compliance structures.
Crown, revealing the details to the ASX, said the board of the merged entity would initially comprise the current directors of each of Crown and Star.
Star has stated it estimates that a merger with Crown would result in indicative cost synergies of between $150m and $200m per annum.
Star has also indicated there is the potential to unlock significant value from a sale and leaseback of the merged entity’s property portfolio.
The Star offer has now sparked a serious bidding war for the casino group, which could yet see other players emerge.
Simultaneously, Crown announced it had received an enhanced offer from a company associated with Blackstone, which already holds 10% of Crown.
McCann the âperfect choiceâ for Crown
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Crown Resorts has scored a coup in snaring outgoing Lendlease chief executive Steve McCann as its next chief executive, as the listed casino operator is getting a highly regarded cleanskin, untarred by the gambling industry, shareholder activist Stephen Mayne said.
Mr McCann, who takes over as head of the troubled company from next month, brings a track record of putting in place systems and dealing with regulators that Crown desperately needs as it seeks to rehabilitate itself in the eyes of regulators and the public, Mr Mayne said on Monday.
âHeâs almost the perfect choice for Crown,â he told