Star (ASX:SGR) shares came out of a brief trading halt after the company was forced to issue a second statement Monday morning on supposed takeover approaches.
The second statement, which named a possible bidder, saw the shares leap nearly 205% to 54 cents just before midday.
The Star said on Monday morning, after the brief trading halt, that it has not been directly approached by US business Hard Rock Hotels and Casinos regarding a buyout but has received interest from a consortium of investors, including the local division of the US parent.
“The nature of the interest to date has been confidential, unsolicited, preliminary, and non-binding … At this stage, none of the approaches resulted in substantive discussions,” The Star said in the second statement, issued after trading was paused by the ASX in the wake of the first statement from the company, which revealed it had had some ‘inbound’ approaches.
That was issued after the Australian Financial Review on Monday named US group Hard Rock Hotels and Casinos as being interested in Star. The AFR said Hard Rock was leading a consortium.
Hard Rock Hotels and Casinos owns the Las Vegas precinct The Mirage and a number of other casinos. It is not listed and is part of the big Miami-based hotels and casinos group.
The second statement was forced out of Star by the ASX. The ASX had asked for further information from the struggling casino group after it responded to a report from The Australian Financial Review that said the US group had engaged KPMG on a pitch to buy the casino business.
