Ho’s casino gamble not paying off

Billionaires Lawrence Ho and James Packer.

Hasn’t James Packer’s brother-from-another-mother Lawrence Ho bought himself into a mess?

As Packer floats off the Italian coast on his new $200 million megayacht, his family’s former TV station Nine has set fire to his casino business Crown Resorts.

Helping spread the flames are the recently acquired Nine mastheads The Age and The Sydney Morning Herald, once edited by Crown’s executive chairman John Alexander.

The carnage has devastated the value of Ho’s 9.9 per cent stake in Crown.

That parcel cost him $880m, at $13 a share.

In eight weeks time, Ho has committed to buy another 9.9 per cent for a further $880m, also at $13 each.

Crown shares yesterday closed down another 1.9 per cent to $12.03 — meaning Ho’s entire 19.9 per cent stake in Crown is now worth $131m less than the $1.8 billion he agreed to pay for it.

Even before the Nine blitz, Ho had his work cut out in Australia thanks to his father, the controversial billionaire, Macau casino operator Stanley Ho.

Ho the Younger — the CEO of Melco Resorts — needs regulatory approval just to keep his new Crown shares.

That’s because Crown’s 2014 Sydney gaming licence mandates Crown must prevent his father or a “Stanley Ho associate” from acquiring any direct or indirect beneficial interest in the company.

The status of Lil’ Ho is an intriguing matter for Australia’s state-based gaming regulators.

Also required for Ho’s ongoing investment is approval from the Foreign Investment Review Board.

And Ho needs to meet with Crown’s non-Packer shareholders, such as Perpetual’s Paul Skamvougeras, who will no doubt be keen to learn what his long-term strategy is for Crown, beyond getting a board seat or two.

To that end, Margin Call has learned Ho has enlisted ­GRACosway’s government relations and corporate advisory services, including those of senior operative Mark Rudder.

GRACosway declined to comment on its exciting new project, which we understand began before Nine’s searing series.

GRACosway has worked on some tricky international investment assignments in recent years, including State Grid’s takeover of gas outfit Jemena, CBS’s swoop on Network Ten and, less successfully, the Chinese-led Australian Rural Capital bid for the cattle empire.

And Rudder of course has worked on plenty of tricky Packer assignments, both for Kerry and his son.

It’s worth noting GRACosway is chaired by former Liberal frontbencher Helen Coonan, who is also on the board of Crown.

It will be interesting to see if Coonan — or any of her fellow Crown board members — decide in coming months to step down from the gaming company. Only to free up time for other work, of course.

Making his move

Parliament House is heaving this week as businesses and their lobbyists try to get time in Canberra with the federal political class before their six-week break.

Among the throng yesterday was John Howard’s nephew Lyall Howard, the hastily departing government relations operative at Australia Post.

Lil’ Howard was walking the corridors with Australia Post boss Christine Holgate, who has released him into the Morrison government staffing ranks (as an adviser to Nationals deputy leader Bridget McKenzie).

A well-timed trip to Canberra to measure curtains.

Illustration: Rod Clement

Change of tune

After bracing for a Bill Shorten future, Matt Comyn’s CBA ranks are being reordered to better suit the bank’s Scott Morrison present.

Margin Call can share the illuminating news that Andrew Thomas — chief of staff to Shorten back when the former AWU boss looked destined for The Lodge — has been redeployed within Comyn’s $148bn bank.

Thomas was recruited last December to lead CBA’s corporate and regulatory policy team as it prepared for the legislative response to Kenneth Hayne’s royal commission report.

With Labor widely tipped to form government, who was better suited for the job than Thomas, the former chief of staff to previous opposition leader Shorten and before that COS to then-treasurer Wayne Swan?

As we wrote back in December when we revealed the hire: “Signals don’t get much louder that corporate Australia is preparing for a Labor government.”

And then May 18 happened.

Thomas’s new gig will be running public affairs for CBA’s retail bank, the profitable heart of the corporate giant.

The repurposing is no bad outcome for Thomas, who will continue to report directly to corporate affairs boss Andrew Hall, a former Nationals federal director.

Previously Thomas was on a one-year contract — a precarious arrangement after Labor’s election loss. His former ALP staffing colleagues may be impressed to learn his new senior gig at the bank is permanent.

There’s clearly a lot more than war gaming with McKinsey consultants going on at Comyn’s bank, which next Wednesday will release its latest multi-billion-dollar profit.

Days before the full-year result, two new heavyweights will join the bank.

Priscilla Sims Brown will shortly start as the newest addition to Comyn’s executive team.

The star American recruit will be in charge of market and corporate affairs and will report directly to the CEO — not through a lawyer, as used to be the case at the bank.

Priscilla Sims Brown

That’s exactly the line of command championed by CBA’s longtime external adviser Greg Baxter.

Speaking of Baxter, Margin Call can also reveal he has stood down as a partner at Brian Tyson’s communications outfit Newgate to go in-house at Comyn’s bank.

Refreshed from a seven-month sabbatical, Baxter starts on Monday as CBA’s manager of external communications, reporting to Hall.

As for Tyson’s Newgate, we gather the firm will continue to provide its consulting services to the banking behemoth.

There’s no shortage of work to go around as CBA moves into its Comyn, McKinsey and Hayne co-authored future.