James Packer has quit his role as casino company Crown’s chairman, but will remain on the board of the company.
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Crown Resorts said its share of Melco Crown’s net profit for the year was an equity accounted profit of AUD122 million, down 57.6 percent from the previous year.
However contributions from Melco Crown Entertainment, the Macau-based business in which Crown owns a 34.3 per cent stake, fell.
“Crown remains my number one business priority and passion”, Packer said, adding that he would continue to drive the gambling empire’s key projects in Asia and Las Vegas.
“I will also be working to improve Crown’s online strategies, an area where I believe we could be doing better and a platform which will provide great potential for global growth in the future”.
While Crown lost a bid to develop a $2 billion casino complex at Brisbane’s Queen’s Wharf in July, it has a raft of other casino developments in the works: Macau’s Studio City complex due to open in October; the Las Vegas Alon resort in 2018; and Crown Sydney by the end of 2020.
He said he would be focused on building the Crown brand globally.
The full-year results include significant items of AUD61.
The company was also forced to take a $61 million impairment charge on the value of its investments in the Las Vegas Cannery project and its now discontinued Sri Lankan foray. Macau’s casino gross gaming revenue for the first seven months of 2015 is down 36.7 percent on the same period in 2014.
Packer created Crown Limited in 2007 by separating the gaming assets from his company Publishing and Broadcasting Limited (PBL), before changing the name to Crown Resorts Limited in 2013.
In Australia revenue was up by 14% with main floor gaming raking in $1.59bn and non-gaming revenue taking in $664.7m.
Rankin is a former co-head of corporate banking and securities at Deutsche Bank and singled out Rupert Murdoch as his “business hero” in an Australian Financial Review profile past year.
“I will certainly be fitting in with optimize Crown’s on the net approaches, a part of the country at which I feel we could definitely do more a network which can deliver you wonderful likely…”
Crown is also hopeful Japan will push ahead in opening up its casino industry, although any liberalisation of the market is unlikely to come until 2016.
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Rankin became the co-chairman of Crown back in November 2014. 19 per share to shareholders on the register at September 25. The move comes following reports of the company’s slumping profits.
