Packer's Crown Resorts sells Las Vegas land in USD 370 M deal

In an announcement this Monday, James Packer's Crown Resorts disclosed it had finalised the sale of its interest in the 14-hectare vacant Las Vegas site, where it had once planned to build a casino, to a subsidiary of Wynn Resorts.

The ASX-listed casino giant is proceeding with the divestment started in 2017, when Crown Resorts embarked on a large-scale debt-cutting drive and started selling its stake in a former joint-venture casino in Macau and pausing the building of a new casino in Las Vegas. 

Crown's share of the proceeds of the USD 370 million sale would be about USD 325 million, the company said in a statement.

At Crown's latest annual general meeting, Mr Packer conceded that his ambition of expanding Crown Resorts internationally had failed, in a large part due to the 2016 arrest and jailing of Crown staff in China for the illegal promotion of gambling on the country's mainland.

"We didn't succeed in a global strategy," Mr Packer said at the meeting in October.

Following the China arrests scandal, Crown turned its focus squarely on its operations in Melbourne and Perth, and its long-delayed VIP casino in Sydney's Barangaroo.

Crown also noted on Monday that it had written down the carrying value of its investment in its Las Vegas subsidiary, Alon, to $200 million, in June 2017.