Crown Resorts positions to appoint Helen Coonan as executive chair, replacing CEO Ken Barton

Crown Resorts is positioning to name Helen Coonan as executive chairman, replacing CEO Ken Barton, as the casino company’s board meets.

Helen Coonan’s move into the role of executive chair caps a tumultuous week for Crown Resorts. Photographer: Adam Yip

Crown Resorts is poised to announce Helen Coonan as the company’s executive chairman, capping a tumultuous week for the casino giant.

Ms Coonan is widely expected to replace chief executive Ken Barton, with the news coming after ­director Andrew Demetriou stepped down from the Crown board on Thursday night, as revealed by The Australian.

Crown’s board met on Friday evening to discuss a succession plan for Mr Barton, who had come in for heavy criticism in the report by NSW Supreme Court judge ­Patricia Bergin for the NSW Independent Liquor & Gaming Authority review into Crown released on Tuesday. The report found serious corporate failings and made adverse findings against key directors.

Ms Coonan was expected to step up from her existing role as Crown chairman and also assume executive responsibilities, becoming the fourth executive chairman the casino and hotel group has had in the past six years.

The company’s billionaire major shareholder James Packer stepped down as executive chairman in 2015, a role that has since been filled by Rob Rankin and then John Alexander. Mr Barton became CEO in January 2020.

Under-pressure Crown CEO Ken Barton. Picture: David Geraghty

Ms Coonan is understood to have a remuneration package of at least $3m annually and an office in Crown’s new Sydney resort at Barangaroo. A former Liberal Party senator who served in parliament for 16 years, she joined the Crown board in 2011.

Guy Jalland and Michael Johnston both resigned their director roles earlier in the week after Crown was the subject of a scathing report after the NSW inquiry into its casino licence.

Despite deep criticisms of the board and corporate culture, Ms Bergin found more positively towards Ms Coonan, a former minister in the Howard government, in her report.

“Ms Coonan accepted the serious corporate failings of Crown and notwithstanding those corporate failings is willing to, as she put it, stay the course,” the report read.

It noted her “character, honesty and integrity (have) not been and could not be called into question”, Ms Bergin wrote. “The burden of reformation will be great.”

Crown has been left for now with seven directors, pending the resignation of Mr Barton, with Harold Mitchell the only board member from Victoria — the state where the company’s biggest asset in Melbourne’s Crown casino and three hotels are situated.

Earlier on Friday afternoon, the chairman of the NSW casino regulator, Philip Crawford, said he expected the resignation of Mr Barton was imminent, and likely to happen “within the next few days”.

Talking to The Weekend Australian shortly after he met with fellow board members of the Independent Liquor and Gaming Authority in Sydney on Friday to formally consider the Bergin report, Mr Crawford expressed his pleasure that Crown director Mr Demetriou had officially resigned earlier in the day after being condemned by the report.

“It was expected and we are pleased about that, that was a good development,” Mr Crawford said.

“As I keep saying, there’s a certain obviousness about some of these people needing to move on — and he was one of them.”

Mr Crawford said Mr Mitchell was possibly one of these people. The Bergin report recommended Mr Mitchell be deemed not suitable as a director if a civil penalty or declaration is made against him due to the minor breaches he made as a director of Tennis Australia.

“I’m not sure what the company is doing there, but that is something we will certainly look at as ILGA,” Mr Crawford said of Mr Mitchell’s future.

“So that is a matter we will be discussing with the company going forward, absolutely.”

Mr Mitchell is understood to be determined to maintain his role.

On Thursday the head of the Victorian Commission for Gaming and Liquor Regulation, Catherine Myers, said the regulator was increasing its scrutiny of Mr Mitchell.

“There is also an ongoing VCGLR investigation regarding Crown Resorts director Harold Mitchell, who has also been asked to explain how he is a suitable person to be an associate of Crown Melbourne,” Ms Myers said.

The calls for continued Victorian representation on Crown’s board is not a parochial Sydney-versus-Melbourne spat. Crown’s flagship Melbourne casino — a sprawling 27-year-old complex that might not be as shiny as its new $2.2bn Barangaroo site — is Victoria’s biggest single site employer.

And rumblings have already been made behind Spring Street’s bluestone facade to ensure Crown keeps some Victorian seats in the company’s boardroom.

“Given the size of Crown’s operations in Victoria, I hope Crown ensures there’s a Victorian appointed to the board of unimpeachable record who is prepared to enact the cultural changes recommended by the Bergin inquiry,” Victorian opposition gaming spokeswoman Steph Ryan told The Weekend Australian.

The release of the 750-page Bergin report on Tuesday has prompted a paradigm shift for the casino regulators where Crown Resorts operates.

The VCGLR and Western Australia’s Department of Local Government, Sport and Cultural Industries have established contact with the chairman of the NSW Independent Liquor and Gaming Authority, Mr Crawford.

The Weekend Australian understands the disparate agencies are now co-ordinating in their evaluation of Crown’s suitability to operate in each of their jurisdictions after Ms Bergin endorsed the idea of greater co-operation between state regulators to promote a more unified suite of regulations across the country.