https://www.copyright link/street-talk/takeover-bid-for-crown-resorts-sources-20210321-p57cnd
James Packer’s Crown Resorts is in the crosshairs of a suitor.Street Talk understands the $7 billion casino group received a takeover bid on Sunday.Street Talk BloombergSources were pointing to private equity group Blackstone - which already has a 10 per cent stake in the company - as the bidder.Crown, advised by investment bank UBS, is expected to disclose the offer on Monday.Sources close to the company confirmed the offer was from Blackstone.Crown’s board is expected to request time to consider the offer.It is understood the suitor has made an offer for 100 per cent of the group, including its casino properties in Melbourne, Perth and Sydney, which have been under intense regulatory scrutiny in recent weeks.James Packer appearing before the NSW inquiry last year. The bid from Blackstone is understood to be worth more than $11 a share, or north of $8 billion.It comes after Crown Resorts has been through an inquiry in NSW investigating its governance and board, and as it prepares to go through similar investigations in Victoria and Western Australia.The company’s shares last traded at $9.86 each. The bid is expected to be at a substantial premium to the last close.The offer comes 12 months after Blackstone, an experience gaming company investor, stormed on to Crown Resorts’ register at $8.15 a share.The US private equity group picked up a 10 per cent stake for $550 million in a deal handled by UBS’ capital markets team.James Packer, who controls 37 per cent of the company, shapes as the kingmaker.Packer has previously tried to stitch up deals for the company, and sold a stake in the business to introduce Melco, and then Blackstone, to the share register last year. He has since come under pressure to reduce his stake in the company, including as part of a NSW inquiry that investigated operating and control procedures at the group.Packer is the company’s biggest shareholder and has, for years, controlled Crown. Blackstone has emerged as interested party in the past 12-months, recognising that Crown and its major shareholder Packer were keen to consider their options.The offer comes only two years after Las Vegas casino operator Wynn Resorts made a short-lived $10 billion bid for the group, which fell apart soon after Street Talk revealed the takeover talks.Blackstone’s dealmakers – its real estate investment unit – have watched every development at Crown very closely. Blackstone’s team, spearheaded by Chris Tynan in Sydney, kept a close eye on the group as it was put through its paces in recent months, waiting for the right time to pounce.Blackstone, a US private equity and real estate giant, has had huge success with casino investments in the past. The group made close to $20 billion buying and re-listing Hilton over the course of about a decade, tripling its initial investment and recording what was hailed as the most profitable private equity deal on record.Blackstone’s real estate and private equity funds were involved in a ride that included a public takeover, a 70 per cent write-down and recapitalisation during the financial crisis, and a re-listing. Blackstone sold the last of its Hilton shares in May 2018.Two years later, it’s sniffed out an opportunity at Australian hotelier and casino group, Crown Resorts, and bought a 9.99 per cent stake off Lawrence Ho’s Melco Resorts, at a time when its ambitions to climb of Crown’s share register were thwarted.Blackstone’s Crown purchase was handled via its real estate team and spearheaded by its head of acquisitions for Asia, Alan Miyasaki, who is based in Singapore, along with Tynan in Sydney.A spokeswoman for Crown could not be reached for comment on Sunday night.The US firm, which manages $US620 billion, already had a string of investments in the underlying property of a number of iconic casino resorts in Las Vegas, including property underlying the MGM Grand, Bellagio and Mandalay Bay casinos.