Inside Asian Gaming

IAG APR 2021年4月 亞博匯 33 Western Australia, with any future partnerships subject to local licensing approval. In December, Crown announced the appointment of former National Australia Bank Chief Financial Crime Risk Officer and Group Money Laundering Reporting Officer Steven Blackburn as its new Chief Compliance and Financial Crimes Officer. Starting in the role on 1 March 2021, Blackburn has been tasked with cleaning up the company’s substantial AML shortfalls. So what now for Crown? Paul Newson, a formerNSWregulator and currently head of the Regulatory Advisory Practice of law firm Senet, suggests much of the heavy lifting has already been done and that the launch of Royal Commissions in two states is at least in part due to Crown failing to tell a persuasive story around its reform journey. “In my conversations with the then CEO (Barton), and listening to their AGM (in October 2020), it was apparent that Crown had initiated not insignificant reform and that they had substantial measures underway,” Newson says. “I think both through caution, perhaps legal advice and some timidity they decided not to really put that into the public domain in an impactful way. They certainly didn’t tell a persuasive story about it and I think they were timid about offending or being seen to be interfering with the inquiry. “My view is they missed an opportunity to tell people that they were on a reform journey and were energetic about it.” Royal Commissions or not, the immediate priority for Crown will be repopulating its board with directors more qualified than those who got them to this point in the first place First cab off the rank is Nigel Morrison, a veteran of the gaming industry with stints as CFO of Crown Melbourne from 1993 to 2000, Group CFO of Macau’s Galaxy Entertainment Group and most recently CEO of 封面故事 士，曾在1993年至2000年期間擔任Crown Melbourne的首席財 務官、澳門銀河娛樂集團的集團首席財務官、並於近期就任紐西 蘭SkyCity Entertainment Group的首席執行官。Morrison被皇 冠任命為新的非執行董事，目前正待監管部門批准。他在業內享 有很高的聲譽，但到目前為止，仍是這個拼圖遊戲中的單獨一塊。 Crawford解釋道：「他們需要適當的體系、需要高級管理人員 做好本職工作，以應對有組織犯罪的潛在衝擊。這對我們而言是 個大問題。」 「這實際上有兩個層面——其一是經營賭場，其二是作為上 市公司根據公司法承擔法定義務。他們把大部分搞錯了，所以如 何把這些問題解決得令我們滿意將十分重要。」 「我希望看到有一定博彩業從業經驗的人、有董事會經驗的 人，外加有董事會經驗、對公司法有良好的理解，以及知曉董事應 盡的義務。我認為他們需要全面型的人才，既能夠顧及到我們所 關心的問題，又有著經營賭場業務的具體經驗。」 然而，Green則認為，改革董事會僅僅是解決方案的一部分。 「問題遠不止於此。」他指出，即使沒有了先前的股東協 議，Packer仍然擁有公司36％的股份。 「只要Packer在公司中持有36％的股份，公司應對博彩風險 的方式始終還是會考慮到他的利益。我認為他們為甚麼會面臨到 適格性這個問題的基本癥結在於——他們如何證明自己可以真正 獨立於Packer？」 Crawford表示，他不能就Packer問題發表任何具體評論，但 補充稱：「你可以假設我們正在與CPH討論他們的持股情況，以及 如何最好地解決有關影響力的問題。我們目前正在就此進行磋 商。」 而鑒於近期有關潛在收購的討論，Packer是否有計劃出售股 票仍是懸而未決的問題。 3月21日，皇冠收到美國跨國私募股權及對沖基金巨頭黑石 集團提出的80億澳元收購要約。該要約提出以約80億澳元（61億