{"id":49939,"date":"2017-05-08T17:00:01","date_gmt":"2017-05-09T00:00:01","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/?p=49939"},"modified":"2017-05-09T08:10:50","modified_gmt":"2017-05-09T15:10:50","slug":"crown-resorts-initiates-complete-withdrawal-macau-sells-remaining-shares-melco-international","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/crown-resorts-initiates-complete-withdrawal-macau-sells-remaining-shares-melco-international\/","title":{"rendered":"Crown Resorts Initiates Complete Withdrawal from Macau, Sells Remaining Shares to Melco International"},"content":{"rendered":"

Crown Resorts will divest itself of its remaining shares in Melco Resorts and Entertainment, the company that was, until last month, known as Melco Crown. The move completes James Packer\u2019s<\/a> total withdrawal from Macau.<\/p>\n

\"Crown
James Packer\u2019s timing was off on Macau, but the China arrests were the final nail in the coffin. Could Crown\u2019s recent strategies be part of a plan to move into a completely new market. (Image: BBC)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The news comes almost exactly one year after Packer\u2019s Crown Resorts made the shock decision to cut its stake in the company it had formed jointly with Lawrence Ho\u2019s Melco International from 34.3 percent to 27.4 percent. This was just five months after the opening of Melco Crown\u2019s long-awaited $4.5 billion Studio City resort.<\/p>\n

In hindsight, the timing could hardly have been worse. After almost two years of tumbling revenues in Macau, Crown Resorts wanted to rein in its international expansion and reduce its exposure to the gambling hub in order to concentrate on projects closer to home.<\/p>\n

Timing is Everything<\/b><\/h2>\n

Packer\u2019s Asian dream had failed, shattered by Beijing\u2019s anti-corruption drive of 2014. The Melco Crown properties, cooked up in a climate of seemingly unassailable prosperity for Macau, then one of the fastest-growing economies in the world, were not providing the returns he expected.<\/p>\n

\u201cI don’t think any of the operators could have predicted what has happened now,”\u00a0said Packer in mid-2015, adding that the crackdown had been \u201cmore severe\u201d than anyone could have imagined.<\/p>\n

\n

“As an Australian investor in China and Macau, it’s very hard to be critical of a corruption crackdown… [but] when and how that ends is something that no one knows.”<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Unfortunately for Packer, the downturn ended at the very moment he decided to cut his stake in Melco Crown. Macau bottomed out in May 2016 and has been growing ever since.<\/p>\n

Final Nail<\/b><\/h2>\n

But last October, the detention of 14 Crown Resorts employees in China on suspicion of gambling-related crimes proved to be a catastrophe for the company, forcing it to completely reevaluate its policy towards the country.<\/p>\n

In December, amid a major reshuffle of the board and talk of an economy drive, Crown<\/a> further reduced its stake in Melco Crown, to 11.2 percent, ceding the controlling stake to Melco International.<\/p>\n

Melco quickly used that controlling stake to propose changing its English name to ditch the \u201cCrown\u201d bit altogether, a proposal agreed by shareholders last month. \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Packer may not have completely abandoned his international expansion plans, however. Sources who spoke to the Australian Financial Review recently suggested Crown\u2019s economy drive may be part of its preparation to for a push into Japan, which in December passed its Integrated Resorts Act and is at last preparing to build a regulate casino market through foreign investment.<\/p>\n

If true, this would pit former partners Crown Resorts and Melco International against one another, and others, in a bidding process that is likely to be fierce.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Crown Resorts will divest itself of its remaining shares in Melco Resorts and Entertainment, the company that was, until last month, known as Melco Crown. The move completes James Packer\u2019s total withdrawal from Macau. The news comes almost exactly one year after Packer\u2019s Crown Resorts made the shock decision to cut its stake in the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":42,"featured_media":49940,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[62,10,18],"tags":[],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nCrown Resorts Initiates Complete Withdrawal from Macau, Sells Remaining Shares to Melco International<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"James Packers\u2019 Crown Resorts sells remaining shares in Melco Resorts and Entertainment\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/crown-resorts-initiates-complete-withdrawal-macau-sells-remaining-shares-melco-international\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Crown Resorts Initiates Complete Withdrawal from Macau, Sells Remaining Shares to Melco International\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"James Packers\u2019 Crown Resorts sells remaining shares in Melco Resorts and Entertainment\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/crown-resorts-initiates-complete-withdrawal-macau-sells-remaining-shares-melco-international\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Casino.org\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:publisher\" content=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/Casino.OrgNews\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2017-05-09T00:00:01+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2017-05-09T15:10:50+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/05\/87314497_jamespackercrown.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"660\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"371\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Casino.org Staff Writer\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:creator\" content=\"@Casino_Org\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:site\" content=\"@Casino_Org\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Casino.org Staff Writer\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"2 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/crown-resorts-initiates-complete-withdrawal-macau-sells-remaining-shares-melco-international\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/crown-resorts-initiates-complete-withdrawal-macau-sells-remaining-shares-melco-international\/\",\"name\":\"Crown Resorts Initiates Complete Withdrawal from Macau, Sells Remaining Shares to Melco International\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/#website\"},\"primaryImageOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/crown-resorts-initiates-complete-withdrawal-macau-sells-remaining-shares-melco-international\/#primaryimage\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/crown-resorts-initiates-complete-withdrawal-macau-sells-remaining-shares-melco-international\/#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/05\/87314497_jamespackercrown.jpg\",\"datePublished\":\"2017-05-09T00:00:01+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2017-05-09T15:10:50+00:00\",\"author\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/#\/schema\/person\/8c48bf89dc86da77b4d856c7b3b78d77\"},\"description\":\"James Packers\u2019 Crown Resorts sells remaining shares in Melco Resorts and Entertainment\",\"breadcrumb\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/crown-resorts-initiates-complete-withdrawal-macau-sells-remaining-shares-melco-international\/#breadcrumb\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/crown-resorts-initiates-complete-withdrawal-macau-sells-remaining-shares-melco-international\/\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/crown-resorts-initiates-complete-withdrawal-macau-sells-remaining-shares-melco-international\/#primaryimage\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/05\/87314497_jamespackercrown.jpg\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/05\/87314497_jamespackercrown.jpg\",\"width\":660,\"height\":371,\"caption\":\"James Packer\u2019s timing was off on Macau, but the China arrests were the final nail in the coffin. 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