How to get James Packer out of Crown

After 28 years, Melbourne’s Crown Casino may finally lose the influence of the Packers. But how will it be done?

Now that royal commissioner Ray Finkelstein has made a definitive finding that no shareholder should own more than 5% of Crown Resorts, foreign takeovers and private equity plays are largely off the table and the pressure is on James Packer to sell down his residual 36% stake before the October 2024 deadline.

Legally forcing a billionaire to surrender voting control over a public company is not something that has happened before in Australia, but it is game on for Crown to finally free itself of the Packer family’s influence.

The Packers weren’t directly part of the controversial winning tender for the Crown Melbourne licence beyond their privately held 10% stake in property developer and syndicate sponsor Hudson Conway. However, this was promptly doubled to 20% after the tender was awarded and then their public company PBL took the entire 15%-plus share allocation given to underwriter Ord Minnett when Crown was floated in 1994.

Source: https://www.crikey.com.au/2021/10/28/crown-how-get-james-packer-out/