“I am committed to working with the board and the various stakeholders to help drive change, restore confidence and achieve a sustainable resolution,” he said in a statement.
Chair Anne Ward said the board was pleased to have secured McCann.
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“Given his time at Crown and previous long-standing leadership at Lendlease, he has the right credentials to lead The Star’s remediation program,” she said.
The Star’s ex-chief executive Robbie Cooke, former chief financial officer Christina Katsibouba and at least eight other senior executives all left the business earlier this year, with the NSW regulator unsure if the company was committed to a culture overhaul since it was first disgraced for extensive anti-money laundering and counterterrorism failings in 2021.
The NSW Independent Casino Commission engaged Adam Bell SC to launch a second probe into The Star earlier this year. His final report into whether the Pyrmont premises deserves its casino licence is due on July 31.
The company argued it’s not yet ready to operate independently but should be given conditional approval to keep its Sydney doors open.
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Cooke and former chairman David Foster were singled out over three weeks of hearings into the group in April as being uncooperative with the NSW regulator and The Star’s special manager, Nicholas Weeks.
Text messages between Cooke and Foster were read out, which showed the chair had plotted to oust Weeks from the business and also suggested orchestrating a shareholder class action against the NSW Independent Casino Commission. Foster later said the suggestion came from shareholders and not him.
The Star’s board first approached McCann earlier this year after it became clear Cooke’s position was no longer tenable. Cooke stepped down at the end of March.
McCann was considered to be collaborative with the regulator during his tenure at Crown Resorts, which has had a far smoother process to getting deemed suitable to operate its Barangaroo casino.
A spokesperson for the NSW regulator said it was encouraged by McCann’s appointment.
“McCann’s experience in navigating the complexities of remediation will serve The Star well as it prepares for the challenges ahead,” the spokesperson said.
Crown Barangaroo hadn’t opened yet when the parent company was savaged by two royal commissions into its casino operations. This meant it was able to restructure its strategy for the Sydney premises more easily than The Star, which had to juggle the transformation of its NSW business while trading continued.
McCann’s appointment comes after The Star named one of his former Crown executives, Jeannie Mok, as its chief operating officer last month. Mok joined The Star after two years at Crown, where she led its transformation strategy and multi-year road map towards suitability to operate its casinos in Sydney, Melbourne and Perth.
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