Force James Packer to offload Crown stake, says Geoff Cousins

A former director of the company that built Crown’s Melbourne ­casino has called for regulators to force James Packer to sell down his shareholding in Crown Resorts.

Former Hudson Conway director Geoff Cousins. Picture: Britta Campion

A former director of the company that built Crown’s Melbourne ­casino, Geoff Cousins, has called for regulators to force billionaire James Packer to sell down his shareholding in Crown Resorts and questioned the independence of the gaming giant’s executive chairman, Helen Coonan.

Breaking his silence on his controversial resignation from the board of Crown Melbourne’s ­developer, Hudson Conway, ­almost 25 years ago, Mr Cousins claimed the Packer family controlled both the developer and Crown at the time, even though they didn’t have a controlling ­interest in either company or ­director nominees on the boards.

In 1997 Mr Cousins quit the Hudson Conway board over “corporate governance concerns” surrounding the management of Crown. The Australian Securities & Investments Commission later cleared the former company of any wrongdoing. The Packer family’s Consolidated Press Holdings held a stake in both companies.

“The proof I would offer for the fact the Packers were in control, despite the fact they didn’t have a controlling shareholding, agreements or appointed directors, was as soon as I raised those issues with the board, the first person to call me was Kerry Packer. He told me ‘I will fix them’,’’ Mr Cousins said.

“My concerns involved some of the most senior people in the company and I believed strongly that there needed to be changes at the top. And Kerry said, ‘I will make them.’ And he was very specific about those changes, which I welcomed. But I put a deadline on it with Kerry, and the changes didn’t happen in that time frame, so I ­resigned from the board.”

His comments come after the Andrews government announced on Monday that retired Federal Court judge Ray Finkelstein would hold a royal commission into Crown’s suitability to hold a gambling licence in Victoria, delivering his report by August 1. Mr Andrews warned he was prepared to remove Crown’s licence should Mr Finkelstein find the company unsuitable to retain it.

“This is a royal commission to determine whether they’re fit to hold that licence, so if you’re ­having that process you have to be clear that you’ll implement the findings,” he said.

The Victorian government’s decision followed political pressure flowing from the Bergin ­inquiry into Crown in NSW, which raised significant issues about the influence of James Packer, Crown’s 37 per cent shareholder, on the governance of the company. It recommended Crown be currently found unsuitable to hold a Sydney casino licence.

Mr Cousins claimed many of the governance problems at Crown highlighted in NSW stemmed from the era when he ­resigned from the Hudson Conway board. “It seems to me naive for regulators to believe that if James Packer retains his shareholding, he will not find a way to exert substantial influence to protect his interests, through force of personality or through ensuring that the people who go on the board or are in ­senior management positions are of like mind,’’ he said.

“Clearly that was happening 25 years ago and it is what has been happening now. The only way I believe the Packer influence will ever effectively leave Crown is if the shareholding goes.”

Mr Cousins — a former director of Telstra and the Packer family’s Publishing and Broadcasting, the former owner of Channel Nine — also said he was also concerned about Ms Coonan’s independence given her position on the Crown board for the past 10 years. “Helen Coonan was clearly a good witness in the Bergin inquiry. That is different to being a strong, independent voice on the board or someone who has not been influenced by the Packers,’’ he said.

Mr Packer told The Australian earlier this month that ­extracting the influence of CPH from Crown’s board was essential in ­ensuring the company’s rehabilitation and, importantly, regaining its suitability to hold a licence for its Sydney casino. “I want to see Crown recover as best as possible. It’s important that CPH gets out of the way and has no involvement other than as a passive shareholder,’’ he said. He was commenting after Crown scrapped agreements to provide services to CPH and confidential information to the billionaire, and followed the surprise decision of two of CPH’s nominee directors to resign from the Crown board in the wake of the NSW ­inquiry.

A third, Perth-businessman John Poynton, resigned a consultancy agreement with CPH to become an independent director. However, the NSW gaming regulator has since called for Mr Poynton to resign.

The regulator’s chairman, Philip Crawford, is also seeking talks with CPH to discuss an amicable arrangement for the company to reduce its voting rights in Crown to a 10 per cent cap recommended by the Bergin inquiry.