IS THE STAR & SKYCITY MERGER ON THE CARDS…OR NOT?

Reports emerged last week of a potential merger between The Star Entertainment Group and New Zealand’s SkyCity Entertainment Group. The merger of the two groups would create a $7 billion casino operator.

However, The Star CEO Matt Bekier said he doesn’t believe the numbers will work to make a viable bid for its smaller rival. But that hasn’t stopped a few investors campaigning for the tie-up to occur.

It is rumoured there’s a push by some SkyCity investors, to oust chairman Chris Moller. It’s understood the move, said to be led by major institutional investors including Perpetual, Investors Mutual and Maso Capital, comes partly on the back of what they claim is a reluctance by Mr Moller to “properly engage with Star Entertainment chairman John O’Neill about the prospect of a merger between the two companies.”

Bloomberg sources said some members of The Star’s board were also lobbying for a merger to occur, but the company’s Malaysian shareholder Genting, which controls 6.6 per cent of the company is reluctant for a deal to proceed.

Skycity and The Star Entertainment have been in merger talks before and The Star’s performance has strongly improved since that time.