Crown Resorts has announced that chief executive Ciaran Carruthers will step down effective 1 September, ending a tenure that began in the wake of damaging regulatory findings against the casino group. According to the trade publication Casino.org, President and Chief Operating Officer David Tsai will become interim CEO on that date.
What Crown announced
The company made the announcement on Monday 26 August 2024. Carruthers will not leave the business immediately. He will remain with Crown in an advisory role until his full departure, which is expected sometime before the end of the year.
Crown Chair John Borghetti, who joined the board in June after heading Virgin Australia, thanked Carruthers for his leadership at what he described as a critical time for the company. Casino.org reported that this period resulted in Crown keeping its gaming licences and undergoing a corporate restructuring.
"Under Ciaran's leadership, Crown has achieved critical milestones including a business transformation and remediation program," Crown Chair John Borghetti said, according to Casino.org.
Carruthers, for his part, said he was pleased to hand over what he called "a stronger, compliant, and transformed business". He added that there was more work to do. These are the company's and executive's own characterisations, and the source material does not include an independent assessment of Crown's compliance.
Background to the leadership change
According to Casino.org, US private equity firm Blackstone acquired Crown Resorts and its three casinos (Crown Melbourne, Crown Perth and Crown Sydney) in early 2022 for more than $6 billion. The report did not specify the currency. At the time, Crown was facing government inquiries in Australia. Casino.org reported that those inquiries concluded the company had committed severe compliance breaches in combatting money laundering and terrorism.
The report states that Blackstone agreed to pay $450 million in inquiry fines and then invested more than $130 million to update Crown's operations in response to inquiry findings in New South Wales and Victoria. Carruthers was appointed in September 2022 to lead the rehabilitation, replacing Steve McCann, who now heads rival Star Entertainment.
Casino.org said Carruthers was credited with improving regulatory compliance and business performance despite a slowdown in consumer spending. The report also stated that he cut more than 1,000 jobs during his time as CEO. Carruthers attributed pressure on consumers' discretionary spending to inflation and interest rate rises.
He also committed to reducing Crown's reliance on casino gambling and luxury offerings, and to appealing to a wider range of customers. Crown ran a marketing campaign stressing that people do not have to be VIPs or high rollers to visit its properties, according to the report.
What has not been disclosed
Crown did not specify whether it is seeking a new permanent chief executive, according to Casino.org. It also did not say whether Carruthers' departure was his own decision. The source material gives no timeline for an appointment and no detail about Tsai's remit beyond the interim title.
Casino.org noted that Crown also owns Crown London, a private members club in Mayfair, Betfair Australasia, and a 50 per cent stake in the Aspers Group, which runs four regional casinos in the United Kingdom.
Crown's casinos are land-based venues operating under state licences. Online casino services remain prohibited in Australia under the Interactive Gambling Act 2001, and nothing in this announcement alters that position.