Shedding Crown identity
The Crown Towers hotel at Melco Resorts and Entertainment’s City of Dreams Macau will operate under a new name, Nüwa starting January 18, according to a statement on the company’s website.
Crown Towers offers 300 guest rooms including 33 villas. The new name reflects the exit from Macau of Australian casino operator Crown Resorts Ltd., which divested of its assets in the SAR with a series of stock sell-downs in May. The company was at the center of an illegal casino marketing campaign in Mainland China that saw 18 of its employees arrested. They were detained for up to 10 months before being convicted, released and deported.
Crown Resorts was an investor with Hong Kong-listed Melco International Development Ltd. in City of Dreams Macau’s promoting company, previously Melco Crown Entertainment Ltd. According to GGRAsia, a filing in December 2016 said Crown Resorts and its subsidiaries had the right to terminate any license granted under intellectual property agreements if Crown’s share of the Asian venture fell below 25 percent.
Earlier this month, Crown investors hit billionaire James Packer’s company with a class action lawsuit saying they had been misled about the potential value of Crown stock, which plummeted in the aftermath of the China arrests.
In other changes at the property, the Hard Rock Hotel, which was temporarily rebranded as the Countdown’ in July 2017, will be renamed again in March. And a new hotel tower, the $1 billion Morpheus, is scheduled to open in the first half of 2018. It will feature approximately 780 hotel rooms, suites and villas.
