Crown Resorts, the biggest owner and operator of land-based casinos in Australia, has announced that the Australian Foreign Investment Review Board has approved the proposed acquisition of the company by Blackstone.
Blackstone Group, a powerful global private equity group, submitted its latest bid for Crown Resorts in January, offering a price of 13.1 Australian dollars cash per share for a total of 8.9 billion Australian dollars for the whole deal.
The discussions between the two parties started in March 2021, when Blackstone offered a price of 11.85 Australian dollars per share. That bid was rejected and later the buyer came up with an improved offer, worth 12.35 dollars per share.
That bid was not good enough for Crown Resorts either, and in November 2021 Blackstone made another offer, proposing a price of 12.50 Australian dollars per share. Blackstone already owns 9.9 percent of Crown Resorts, a stake that was acquired from Melco Resorts & Entertainment Limited in April 2020. The price per share at that time was just 8.15 dollars.
The latest offer was approved by the Crown Resorts board, which issued a statement in which it unanimously recommended that shareholders vote in favor of the acquisition as long as any better offers don’t come along.