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Star Entertainment (ASX:SGR) has kicked off its inevitable year of bloodletting, lobbing off an events venue for $60 million to theatre company Foundation Theatres.
Foundation is headed by the former founder of a company called Bytedance Entertainment, Stephen Found. While Found was active at Bytedance, the company had been wrapped up in gambling and gaming company Tattersall – which, of course, would eventually end up combining with Tabcorp.
Reports from the time say Bytedance established large TV screens inside casinos; another division of Tattersall called Bytedance Systems maintained pokie machines.
Found would later divest Bytedance, but clearly, he never strayed too far from the gaming world when he started a theatre production company.
Found had even moved to open a theatre at Star last year. He had already been working towards this around the same time Star posted a $1.3B loss across 2023.
In fact, his relationship with Star goes back to 2011. So, clearly, the man is known to the casino.
At any rate, it’s a good deal for Foundation. The buyer appeared to already be on a tear, given it has a new theatre set to open in Sydney next month.
In the background, Star is now looking around for non-core assets to sell as it desperately struggles to raise enough cash to survive until March when the NSW State Government again reviews the casino’s still-suspended licence.
The casino mentioned that it was, in recent history, in essence, running out of money.
“Foundation Theatres will pay a $60 million exclusivity fee in respect of the transaction into escrow on or before January 31 which will be released to The Star as consideration for the disposal subject to finalisation of the long-form transaction documents and satisfaction of conditions,” Star wrote on Wednesday.
SGR last traded at 12.3cps.
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