Star Entertainment Sees Treasury Hotel and Casino Sale Fall Through

Star Entertainment, one of the most important operators of land-based casinos in Australia, has announced that its previously agreed deal to sell the Treasury Hotel and Casino in Brisbane has fallen through.

The deal was initially announced back in October 2021 and it was supposed to be a sale and leaseback transaction between Star Entertainment and Charter Hall, an investment and funds management company.

The agreement would have seen Star Entertainment sell both the Treasury Casino and the Treasury Hotel buildings in Brisbane, along with the adjacent car park, for a total of 248 million Australian dollars. The deal also stated that the hotel and the car park would be leased back to Star Entertainment for 30 years, with two additional options for an extra 15 years.

As for the Treasury Casino, the agreement would have seen Star Entertainment continue to operate it until it managed to complete and open Queen’s Wharf Brisbane, the brand new casino development in which the company has invested 3.6 billion Australian dollars. Once the new development would have been completed, then casino operations were supposed to move to the new location.

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The plans seemed rock-solid but a Star Entertainment filing suddenly announced that Charter Hall had decided to pull out of the transaction due to “conditions having not been satisfied by the relevant date under the terms of the contracts.” The buyer was offered the possibility to extend the dates for the satisfaction of those conditions but declined the offer. “The Star is considering its options in relation to this matter generally,” the Star Entertainment filing concluded.

The news comes at a very difficult time for Star Entertainment as the company is already facing decreasing revenues due to various regulatory troubles following the inquiries into its activities both in New South Wales and Queensland.

Moreover, the company has recently announced that the opening of Queen’s Wharf Brisbane, the new flagship location that the company is building in Brisbane, has been postponed once again. The opening was expected to happen in December 2023 and it has been postponed until April 2024.

Queen’s Wharf Brisbane will feature four hotels, 50 restaurants, cafes and bars, around 2,000 residential apartments, along with a huge casino with 2,500 slot machines and hundreds of gaming tables.

Source:

“Setback for Star as sale of Treasury hotel and casino assets in Brisbane falls through“, asgam.com, June 20, 2023.