Crown Perth chair John Van Der Wielen has spoken bluntly about the ‘appalling’ failures of the besieged casino, but has avowed the Blackstone-owned organisation can and will be turned around.
The former HBF boss and company director fielded questions in a wide-ranging Business News interview this morning, the first since being recruited by Crown’s new owners US investment firm Blackstone as part of a major overhaul at the top end of the embattled business.
Mr Van Der Wielen was made chair of casino licensee Burswood Limited in July 2022 and today spoke frankly on the business’ damaged reputation, labelling the culture and past behaviours as appalling.
“I wish I could I tell you...I read the Royal Commission papers and they got it wrong - they didn’t,” he told the audience.
“And the culture and the past behaviours…apalling and pretty shameful a lot of the things that took place.”
Handed down in March 2022, the 994-page document found Crown Perth and its subsidiaries unfit to hold the state’s only casino licence, but stopped short of recommending the licence be revoked.
Crown Perth and Melbourne recently agreed to a $450 million fine as part of an agreed penalty for anti-money laundering and counter-terrorism breaches following a 15-month investigation by AUSTRAC.
He said that one of the advantages of coming into a business following a royal commission was that it provided a rulebook and pointed to new leadership as areas of change.
He also flagged the imminent announcement of a chief financial officer.
"We've got David Tsai..our new CEO of Crown Perth is someone that's run global resorts...we're not too far off announcing a really high-powered CFO for the business.
"What needs changing? You need to bring in the right people. You need to bring in the right ethics."
Crown was acquired by investment giant Blackstone in mid-2022 for approximately $9 billion.
Mr Van Der Wielen also took a veiled swipe at the organisation's former leadership.
"[I'm] a great believer in the saying 'the fish rots at the head' and there was a few fish that were here, that were rotting," he said.
"That needs to be taken out of an organsiation to take it forward and we’ve done that."
He also maintained that Crown was a vital tourism asset to the state.
"This thing has to be run well and it will be run well and we'll do it ethically."
Crown Perth also made headlines after a valet driver damaged two Lamborghinis in February earlier this year.
Mr Van Der Wielen said the first thing the team did had been to apologise and contact the owner of the cars, which was revealed at the time as WA billionaire Laurence Escalante.
He said he had spoken to 'the customer' several times since and had expressed the group's apologies, indicating there were no hard feelings following the incident.
