Rear Window

Billionaires Escalante and Arnaout taking liberties with ASIC

The Perth entrepreneur’s attempt to wrestle back total control of VGW should have been a bit more obvious were its disclosures made in time.

Primrose RiordanAssociate editor

Jun 12, 2025 – 5.00am

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Perth billionaire Laurence Escalante last week revealed his attempt to wrestle back total control of his highly profitable private company Virtual Gaming Worlds. Fair enough: he built it and already owns 70 per cent.

But had Virtual Gaming Worlds stuck to the Australian Securities and Investments Commission rules on disclosures, the announcement may have come as less of a surprise to shareholders caught on the hop.

Primrose Riordan covers private companies and family offices from the AFR's Sydney newsroom. Primrose was previously a correspondent for the Financial Times and covered foreign affairs and politics in Canberra. Primrose has won multiple awards for her journalism including from The National Press Club, SABEW in the US and Press Gazette in the UK. Message Primrose on Signal: https://tinyurl.com/PrimroseSignal