The rise and fall of Star Entertainment’s CEO Matt Bekier

The Star CEO once oversaw a big turnaround in the casino group’s fortunes, and was known to wear cufflinks with dollar signs. Now he’s out.

Star Entertainment Group CEO Matt Bekier was once in charge of a transformed business. Now he has resigned. Picture: Richard Walker

Matt Bekier’s resignation as Star Entertainment boss on Monday makes at least one thing clear: there are no winners from Sydney’s big casino war.

Just look at the biggest names in business who have fallen by the wayside since The Star and Crown Resorts went head to head almost a decade ago in one of the more bitter business, and political, stoushes to unfold in corporate Australia.

Those were the days of roughly nine years ago, when among a rolling series of incidents, media blitzes and other big events, billionaire James Packer was desperately working on Crown gaining the second casino licence that would see it compete with the established Star at Pyrmont.

Packer at one stage even famously hosted Star chairman John O’Neill and then chief executive John Redmond in the middle of Sydney Harbour on his $50m superyacht.

It was alleged Packer ­offered to stay out of Star’s way in Brisbane if it “behaved itself” and he received support for his $2bn Crown Barangaroo in Sydney.

The claims were denied but the ACCC investigated the matter, while Crown went on to controversially gain that licence for Barangaroo only to still not have the ability to operate as a casino there in the wake of the NSW independent Liquor and Gaming Authority inquiry findings last year.

Bekier would gain the Star chief executive role in 2014 when that company was facing similar tumult, gaining promotion from his director of finance role to the top job after predecessor Larry Mullin departed after a skiing accident.

The Star was reeling after being routed by Crown in the political battle over the new licence and then a series of scandals in what Bekier said was a “terrible” time that Star – then known as Echo Entertainment – had “inflicted a lot of wounds on ourselves on top of what was piled on by others.”

Bekier had to be talked into staying at Star but set about turning the company around with chairman John O’Neill. There was no “behaving itself” and Bekier was a confident CEO who was known to wear cufflinks with dollar signs, was direct in his manner and considered brash by some.

Born and raised in Switzerland, Bekier earned a PhD on the definition of hedge funds before working in consulting and later ending up at Tabcorp when he moved to Australia. O’Neill was key to his elevation to the Star job.

The pair worked hard to execute Star’s strategy to lessen its reliance on gambling as it lost its exclusivity to Crown in Sydney. All Bekier had to do for a reminder of what he faced was look out the window of his office each day: he had a prime view of Crown’s six-star hotel and casino project being built across the water from his Pyrmont base.

Bekier would ignore the hype though and revamp Star, executing an impressive turnaround in its fortunes as profits improved and it embarked on key deals to expand its Brisbane, Gold Coast and Sydney properties in a huge capital works program.

The Queensland assets in particular were rejuvenated completely and will benefit from events such as the 2032 Olympics.

Star also largely kept its own counsel and at least publicly resisted the temptation to bag its rival when Crown struck trouble in China with the controversial arrest of its employees there in 2016, and then during the terrible time for Crown across several subsequent inquiries.

So much did Star and Bekier’s fortunes improve that it even launched a $12bn nil premium merger proposal with Crown last year. Extraordinarily, after losing the fight it looked like Bekier and Star could even win the Sydney casino war in the end.

It wasn’t to be.

The merger proposal was eventually scrapped. And now the Star finds itself embroiled in its own regulator inquiry scandal to determine its suitability to hold a NSW casino licence.

It turns out Star disguised almost $1bn worth of gambling transactions as hotel charges and that Chinese junket operator Suncity was still allowed at Star despite repeatedly flouting money laundering controls and having known links to organised crime.

Those inquiry revelations were followed by details of Bekier dismissing KPMG’s independent report that exposed “fundamental deficiencies” in the Star’s anti money laundering programs at a hostile meeting.

As for Suncity, Bekier was said to reply “why not” when asked why the junket operator was still involved at Star.

Bekier resigned on Monday, saying in a statement that it “was the right thing to do for him to take responsibility” given he was accountable for the effectiveness and adequacy of the company’s processes and culture.

Casinos are a tough game. Competition is intense, yet there is that saying that the house always wins.

Now the tables have been turned, and like many of the gamblers at casinos Bekier is the latest in a long line to walk out the door a loser.

Over at Crown, the list of departures includes big name ex-directors like Andrew Demetriou and Harold Mitchell, not to mention former CEO Ken Barton and Mr Packer will depart the shareholder registry should a mooted takeover by private equity Blackstone be finalised.

Like at Crown, there will probably be plenty more who will have to follow in Bekier’s footsteps.

This is unlikely to end well for most involved.

It certainly didn’t for Bekier.