Unloading $535M in assets
Crown Resorts will sell two residential floors of its new Sydney hotel casino complex for US$46 million to chief shareholder James Packer. It’s part of a $535 million asset sell-off by the company in Australia and overseas, reports the Sydney Morning Herald.
Packer plans to buy two residential floors “above the mid-levels” at Barangaroo, which is under construction and due to open by 2021. “The sale documentation will be on the same, or materially the same, terms as the documents to be entered into with other purchasers,” the company said in a statement.
Crown will also sell a 14-hectare (35.6-acre) site on the Las Vegas Strip to Wynn Resorts; unload more than US$54 million in shares in Caesars Entertainment; and possibly sell its 62 percent stake in the online corporate bookmaker CrownBet. That deal would be worth about US$115 million.
The divestments are related to Packer’s decision to focus on his domestic business, which itself followed an October 2016 scandal that saw 18 Crown employees arrested in Mainland China for illegally promoting gambling there. At the company’s annual general meeting in October, Packer acknowledged that his goal to grow Crown into an international powerhouse had failed. “We didn’t succeed in a global strategy,” he said.
That said, Packer is confident about the success of the Sydney project, particularly as VIP revenues start to resurge.
