Crown Resorts chairman John Alexander stood down from executive role in corporate reshuffle
James Packer’s embattled Crown Resorts group has bowed to investor pressure by killing off chairman John Alexander’s executive role with the group in a wide-ranging corporate reshuffle announced late on Friday.
Minerals Council chair Helen Coonan will take over the non-executive chair part of the job, which deals with corporate governance and other oversight issues, while chief financial officer Ken Barton has been elevated to chief executive.
No replacement has been announced for Barton and he will also continue to act as CFO until one is found.
The move, which is believed to be supported by Packer as major shareholder, signals the end of Alexander’s reign at Crown, where he has been executive chair for the past three years and on the board since 2007.
Related: Crown Resorts: shareholders' lawyers lose bid to overturn secrecy provisions
Alexander, a long-time Packer lieutenant and former editor of the Sydney Morning Herald, will serve as an executive director for a year to “assist with the transition”, Crown said.
He drew fire for his dual role at the Crown annual meeting in October, where he used his address to shareholders to blast his old masthead and its stablemates for “sensationalist” reporting of allegations against the company.
As the company prepares to face unprecedented public hearings into its suitability to hold a casino license, it has also appointed independent chairs to the companies that run each of its gambling dens.
The dramatic reshuffle leaves Crown with a structure “in line with feedback we have received from a number of proxy advisers and shareholders and better aligns with contemporary governance practices”.
Executive chairman roles are disliked by institutional investors and the proxy firms that advise them because they blur the oversight role of the board chair with the hands-on work done by the company’s management.
Barton will be paid up to $4.8m a year, made up of a base salary of $3m a year plus a bonus, while Alexander will trouser $3.5m for his 12-month contract.
As part of the reshuffle, three non-executive directors have been appointed to oversee each of the company’s licensed operations in Australia – a move the company said would “support the oversight of Crown’s Australian resorts”.
Former AFL boss Andrew Demetriou becomes chair of the company that runs its key Melbourne casino, Crown Melbourne Limited, and former senior public servant Jane Halton has been appointed to the same position at Crown Sydney Gaming, which has responsibility for the group’s under-construction Barangaroo facility.
Future Fund director John Poynton has been given the chair position at the company that oversees Crown’s Perth outpost, Burswood Limited.
It is believed the reshuffle has been in the works for some time, but was announced on Friday after it became clear that public hearings into it in NSW were likely to run for months.
Related: Crown Resorts may have breached casino licence over proposed share deal with Melco, inquiry hears
The inquiry, run by former NSW Supreme Court judge Patricia Bergin, held a preliminary session on Tuesday but hearings are to begin in earnest next month with an examination of the vulnerability of casinos to money laundering and the role of junkets and links to organised crime.
A second tranche of hearings will deal with Packer’s agreement to sell a large chunk of his Crown shares to the Melco group controlled by Hong Kong billionaire Lawrence Ho, whose father Stanley is banned from involvement with Barangaroo.
Further hearings will examine allegations made by Nine newspapers about Crown’s involvement with money laundering and organised crime, Melco and its associates’ suitability to hold a license and strengthening casino regulation in general.
A Packer spokesman declined to comment on the reshuffle.
