Billionaire James Packer Resigns as Crown Chairman

Crown Resorts which operates a number of casinos across the world has experienced a decline in revenue, especially since revenue from its Macau operations have fallen considerably due to the anti-corruption crackdown. Crown Chairman and billionaire James Packer recently submitted his resignation in the midst of this revenue slump and will be replaced by investment banker Robert Rankin.

Rankin has been a close advisor to Packer and is responsible for running Consolidated Press Holdings, which is Packer’s private company. Packer will not terminate his relationship with Crown Resorts but will continue to be on its board of directors since he is the major shareholder and will most likely taken up a position as a senior executive director. He will also continue to be the co-chairman of Crown’s subsidiaries namely the Alon Resort in Las Vegas and Melco Crown Entertainment in Macau.

Sources close to Packer state that one of the main reasons why he decided to step down as Chairman was because of a grueling travel schedule. Packer has spent a lot of time outside Australia as he had to spend his time traveling the globe on business development opportunities and also spending time with his family in Los Angeles.

Packer has reassured stakeholders that even though he has resigned as Crown’s chairman his number one priority continues to be Crown Resorts and he will now focus on spending his time to improve Crown’s online business portfolio and build a robust platform that will help Crown promote its gaming portfolio all across the globe.

Speaking of Packer’s recent decision to resign as Chairman and focus on developing the online side of the business, Robert Rankin said

I think he’s going to be freed up to be even more effective and more involved on the things that are going to make a real difference to us over the next five to ten years. In terms of our international growth and what we’re trying to do to grow online, I don’t think there’s anyone better in the world to get really focused on that than James to be frank

Crown Resorts has faced a few setbacks in the recent past most notably with its Macau operations and also the fact that it was unable to proceed with its proposed casino in Sri Lanka. Crown Resorts also lost out to Echo Entertainment over a multi-billion dollar casino project that was to be constructed in Queensland.