After a years-long roller-coaster ride for The Star Entertainment Group, there may be an end in sight to its ongoing state of crisis.
While it’s early days, the investment by Bally’s Corporation and billionaire Australian pub owners the Mathieson family could prove a major lifeline to the listed company.
The Star Entertainment Group told the ASX this week that US gambling company Bally’s had agreed to acquire 56.7 per cent of its issued capital for $A300 million ($US187 million) .
The following day it announced that the Mathieson family, its largest shareholder, had agreed to take on $100 million of the investment in collaboration with Bally’s.
Rhode Island-based Bally’s, which says it has a “proven track record of revitalising underperforming casino businesses” called the group a “leading Australian entertainment and gaming company”.
The deal would “preserve The Star’s long-term-potential”, Bally’s said in a media statement.
The agreement could mark the beginning of a new era for the group which has flailed for several years in the face of regulatory anti-money laundering crackdowns, ASIC investigations and the revocation of its casino licences, not to mention development woes.
Delays at its Queen’s Wharf project in Brisbane led to a $819-million writedown in the last financial results posted to the ASX last year. The Star has refused to post financial results since.
The huge Brisbane development partially opened late last year, two years behind schedule.
The group has also been hemorrhaging money operationally.
It paid $150 million in fines in 2023 after an ASIC investigation into its financials and findings regarding non-compliance with anti-money laundering and counter-terrorism financing laws.
The group was also fined $15 million in 2024 in NSW for “numerous shortcomings in governance, regulatory compliance, technology and risk management”.
As the outcomes of the Bally’s deal shake out, attention is turning to the casino and hotel operator’s dwindling real estate portfolio, having already offloaded its Treasury Brisbane casino last year to Griffith University.
The group this week announced that it had completed the divestment of The Star Sydney Event Centre, located in The Star Sydney, to Foundation Theatres for $60 million.
The announcement was the completion of a deal signed in January 2025 during a fire sale as The Star hung on for dear life.
Given that the NSW Independent Casino Commission alerted the group last week that The Star Sydney’s casino licence would remain suspended until “at least” September 30, 2025, the future of the wider venue is uncertain.
Last month, the group also signed a deal that divested its interest in its Brisbane casino and hotel at Queen’s Wharf to its joint venture partners Far East Consortium and Hong Kong-based diamond dealer Chow Tai Fook.
At this stage, its only fully operational venue appears to be The Star Gold Coast, which it took back control of in the deal with its Queen’s Wharf JV partners.
The future of the site as a casino could also be in doubt, however, with another licence revocation hanging over its head.
But the Queensland Minister for Justice granted a small reprieve last week, deferring the suspension of The Star’s Gold Coast casino licence until September 2025.
