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Crown Resorts, the biggest casino operator in Australia is currently discussing an acquisition proposal made by the U.S. based Blackstone Group who is offering the controversial Australian casino operator A$8.02 billion to acquire all of its casino properties down under.
Former chairman James Packer made it clear that whatever the Crown Resorts board decides on the offer, he would take the final call since he was the majority stake holder owning close to 37 percent of Crown Resort shares.
Crown Resorts confirmed on April 19 that they had received another proposal from U.S. based Oaktree Capital Management LP. This proposal was made on behalf of a company acting on behalf of Oaktree and the proposal submitted was non-binding and preliminary.
However, this proposal does not offer to buy out Crown Resorts as a whole but specifically targets James Packer’s 37 percent stake in Crown Resorts. Oaktree is willing to put down $2.3 billion which is the equivalent to A$3 billion to buy out James Packer.
The Crown Resorts board said that they had not yet made a list of the positives from this proposal and will now have to sit down and discuss this new offer. Oaktree has offered to buy back the shares that Packer owns through his company Consolidated Press Holdings in a structured manner.
Crown Resorts board also made it clear that any selective share buyback process of Consolidated Press Holdings would have to be authorized by getting the majority approval from Crown shareholders and Consolidated Press Holdings would have no role in the matter as they do not get to cast their vote in this regard.
Will The New Offer Impact Blackstone’s Offer?
Blackstone sent in a memo to Crown Resorts last week amending some of its terms and conditions regarding its potential A$8.02 billion acquisition proposal. One of those conditions was that Crown Resorts must get full approval from all concerned state gaming regulators and be allowed to continue to operate its casinos in New South Wales, Victoria and Western Australia.
If Crown Resorts decides to move forward with the proposal from Oaktree Capital would it impact the offer made by the Blackstone Group? Crown Resorts has yet to make a final decision on Blackstone’s offer. We will have to wait and see how things turn out for Crown Resorts in the next few weeks.
